


you pick me up and take me home again

by wintrs



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Fluff, Eventual non-graphic smut, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Jos Verstappen’s A+ Parenting, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Permanent Injury, Quick Burn, Setting: 2027 season (in which neither of them are racing), Sharing a Bed, dan and max in perth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintrs/pseuds/wintrs
Summary: It feels like a dream, seeing Daniel again after all these years. It's a second chance Max knows he doesn't deserve, and he isn't going to waste it.Or: Max isn't racing in 2027, although he couldn't tell you exactly why. But it isn't a big deal. He's fine.
Relationships: Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen
Comments: 177
Kudos: 335





	1. Chapter 1

Max is on an “indefinite hiatus.”

That’s how PR had decided to term it. Max hadn’t wanted to say anything, really, except that he wouldn’t be racing next season, but that would raise too many questions. Did he get forced out of his seat? Will he be racing in another series, going for a triple crown? Is he retiring because he can’t handle the pressure? 

Max wouldn’t know how to answer. What he does know is that he’s a three-time world champion; not yet the five-, six-, seven-time world champion the media imagines him as, but he’s satisfied. Competing against Lewis, Lando, Charles—he’s satisfied. He’s put up his fight. 

He’s not retired, exactly—he might still come back. But for now, he has other things he wants to do. The long list of games he wants to play is a function of a lifetime of being too busy, and he currently has all the time in the world to work through it. He wants to learn how to cook, because getting every meal delivered stopped being cute around 24. Maybe he’ll take up painting or golf, go to brunch with his friends in Monaco, do all the things older people with time and money do. 

So, yeah. “Indefinite hiatus.” It’s fine. 

—

Playing new games turns out to be less fulfilling than he expected. He tries out a few with stories instead of multiplayer, but he can’t get into them very well with so little at stake. Even new multiplayers fall short when he has to face the learning curve against people who already know how to play. FIFA, iRacing, and Call of Duty may come out with regular installments, but the base game is always the same, and he’s good at them. Why change?

Plus, no matter how many new games Lando becomes momentarily obsessed with, Call of Duty stays near the top of his list. 

“Oh, fuck! Two—three guys in the house,” Max says, spraying bullets as he runs his character back outside. He may be good, but he’s not _that_ good—especially when he’s already low on health and waiting for Lando to bring him a stim pack.

“On my way,” Lando says. “Did they follow you out?”

“No, but they probably will. Hurry up.” He’s crouching around the corner of the house, which is about the best he can do for hiding. They’re in a fairly desolate part of the map. 

Lando laughs. “Bossy,” he says, and leaves it at that. 

They both end up dying, predictably, but their next few matches are solid. Max does better when Lando isn’t streaming, whether due to the pressure of eyes or pure bad luck, so it’s always most fun when it’s just the two of them—although Max has definitely grown to understand the appeal of bullying chat over the years.

They finish a match and land on the loading screen again, characters standing together idly. Lando yawns into the mic. 

“Great session, mate, but that’s gotta be the last game for me. I’m kind of jealous, honestly—it must be nice staying up as late as you want these days,” he says.

Max chuckles. “I barely do. Going to bed at 11 for thirty years will do that to you.”

“Aww,” Lando whines. “Twenty-nine! And at least give me some hope, alright? I need to know things are good on the other side.”

Max stares at the loading screen. The other side? He supposes it’s true, but it doesn’t feel like anything has changed at all. Everyone had told him it would take time for him to truly settle in, but it’s been nearly four months since his last race, and he wouldn’t be able to describe what “the other side” is like beyond a little boring.

“Max? Did you fall asleep on me already?” 

“Just got distracted, dickhead,” he huffs. “Yes, things are good on the other side. Now go to bed already or Jon will be getting on my ass about it.”

“Yeah, yeah—night, old man,” Lando says. “You want me to call your nurse for you to help get you ready?”

“Old man!” Max says. “No matter how old I get, don’t forget you’re only two years behind. If I’m an old man, so are you.”

“Nah, that’s where you’re wrong. Those two years are vital—they’re what separates my young, adorable self from your elderly crotchety-ness,” Lando teases. Max rolls his eyes. “But seriously, gg’s. Talk tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah. You on for presser?”

“Tragically,” Lando says. “Charles and Esteban are on too, it’s your worst nightmare.” Lando loves to poke fun at his and Charles’s dumb young gun rivalry every chance he gets, which Max can’t even be mad about because it actually was dumb. Ocon, though, is no joke. Fuck Ocon.

“Send me the highlights, you know I won’t be watching that shit,” Max says. “Night.”

“Night!” Lando says, ending the call. 

After a moment of consideration, Max queues up for a new game with a random teammate. He plays a few rounds, but ultimately ends up stalling back on the loading screen again. COD is fun, sure, but it’s more fun with Lando. 

He flips between menus for a bit, thinks about setting up some new loadouts or something, but he doesn’t feel in the mood for it. He doesn’t feel in the mood for anything, really. He switches off his PC and stands up with a stretch. 

He would stay up if Lando was still on, but he actually is a bit tired already anyway. It had been more difficult as a teenager, but even then going to bed early hadn’t bothered him much.

—

Max wakes up slowly. 

Not having to set an alarm every day is one of the perks of technically being off his training regime. He’d had his share of lie-ins over the years, but rarely, and never outside of breaks and off-season. There’s probably no difference between staying in bed in January vs. April, but still. It’s freeing. 

He grabs his phone off the bedside table. It’s as expected; Lando sending him the customary media day crying emojis, yesterday’s message from Victoria he needs to reply to, an interview request forwarded to him by his manager mixed with a few brand emails. He responds to it all and spends longer than he’d like to admit scrolling through instagram afterward, flipping between his main feed and private twice before he calls it quits. Unlike the lack of alarm, instagram is a habit unchanged by his new circumstances.

Max works through his morning routine quietly. He’s had his own place for as long as he’d had the option, but he’s still getting used to being in it all the time. Even when he’d been home during the off-season, there’d always been media engagements or autographs to sign for Red Bull, and his trainer was over practically every day anyway. It’s not that he doesn’t have any obligations anymore, but his schedule is much less… regimented. The lazy day spent alone that had once been a treasured anomaly has become the norm, and he isn’t sure yet how he feels about that.

When he’s done he pads into the kitchen. It’s only just past nine, and he doesn’t have anything planned today except maybe watching the press conference, despite the presence of any unfavorable characters. He could run down to the shop or order in some breakfast if he wanted, but he has enough eggs for a scramble. Even something as basic as that should make him feel a little productive.

After he pours his eggs into the pan, he can’t help but let his mind wander. Going to bed restless is one thing, but waking up with it is infinitely worse, mostly because he has yet to find a reliable way to get rid of it.

He could go down to the shop after all, but he doesn’t really need groceries. He could go for a run, but he’s already showered this morning and isn’t keen to do it again so soon. Most of his friends are in Hanoi, either driving or working with a team or press, and any of his normal friends would likely be at their own jobs right now, considering it’s a Thursday morning. There are other former drivers in Monaco he could potentially hang out with, but he’s fairly certain Lewis wouldn’t be down for an impromptu social call—if he’s even currently in Monaco.

Max hadn’t known what to expect when he’d officially decided not to race this season. He’d said as much, faced with Christian’s incredulity—why is he stopping, what does he plan to do instead, when will he come back, _will_ he come back, is he sure? He hadn’t been able to answer any of them with anything more than the verbal equivalent of a shrug. But whatever lifestyle he’d been subconsciously expecting, it wasn’t what he got: lazing about in his apartment every day and hardly even enjoying it.

He’d like to think he’d gone into this break with no expectations, but that isn’t entirely accurate. He hadn’t known what to expect for his daily life, for the sorts of menial changes not racing would bring, but he’d expected some new sense of inner peace and contentment to wash over him with finally being able to do what he wanted. At the very least, he’d thought that by the time the start of the season rolled around, he’d be able to articulate why he wanted a break in the first place. Three races in with no answers in sight, he’d clearly been too optimistic.

Max glances down. “Shit!” 

He turns the eggs over with his spatula. The ones on top look only kind of overdone, but the underside is a solid sheet of crispy brown. He doesn’t know if he’s only become this absent-minded recently, or if he just hadn’t noticed it before when every day of his life was prescribed. 

The eggs aren’t inedible. He scrapes off the way-too-burnt bits as he’s eating, and the rest just taste a little weird and crispier than normal. He could’ve thrown them away, to remake eggs or eat something else, but he’s slightly embarrassed about it and doesn’t want to shy away from the consequence. Next time, maybe, he won’t fuck it up.

— 

Max’s day doesn’t improve from there. Thanks to the time difference, the press conference starts shortly after he finishes eating, and it ends equally quickly. Lando had cracked a couple of jokes, the lot of them had made one or two interesting remarks, but Max knows from experience how worthless typical pre-race conferences are. Today’s was no exception. 

And fucking Ocon. Ugh. 

He plays a little FIFA, but he can’t bring himself to fully focus on it. He tries to start a new series Alex had recommended to him a few weeks back, but he ends up on his phone again, swiping between instagram, twitter, and motorsport forums. He kills the rest of his morning that way, moving back and forth between inadequate distractions until it’s time for lunch.

After lunch he does some light yoga on the balcony. It’s hardly athletic compared to what a run would have been, especially because he keeps it light enough to not need a second shower, but it’s nice. Afterward he lounges outside and watches the boats, and it’s nice, too. In the near decade he’s lived in this apartment, he hasn’t grown tired of the view quite yet. 

But even still, through all of that, there’s the restlessness in the back of his mind. It’s almost like a second person occupying his head with how much space it’s taking up. No matter what he tries, he can’t seem to shake it.

Once he’s eaten dinner, he’s ready to go to bed despite it only being half past eight. Maybe it would be pathetic to go to bed this early, especially when he can’t pinpoint anything as being particularly wrong, but if he’s asleep, at least he won’t be thinking about it. Plus, he can justify it. Free practice starts at five tomorrow, Monaco time. If he goes to bed now, he'll technically be getting a full night’s sleep before watching. 

After he washes up for the night, Max gets into bed—but he doesn’t last long. He watches the clock tick on-and-off for about an hour before he caves and gets back up, puttering about in the kitchen and lounge again. He thinks about turning on a movie, booting up FIFA, something, but he just wants to go to bed. It’s a bit unsettling: as far back as he can remember, he’d never had this much trouble falling asleep before. 

He gets back into bed anyway. He actually feels tired now, which is an improvement, but he still can’t make it happen. He knows there’s some old, probably expired melatonin in his bathroom cabinet, and despite his distaste for taking anything that isn’t strictly necessary, it’s looking more and more appealing. Instead, he decides to dick around on his phone a bit and see if he can at least distract himself from that.

He flits between apps. His screentime for today is probably through the roof—he’s exhausted just about every area of content he cares about already. His feeds all look the same, and he’s not exactly interested in googling himself and bringing up all the articles asking the same questions he’d been avoiding thinking about all this time. 

He lands on his messenger app. He’s not the type to text first, generally, but it wouldn’t be completely unbelievable; he scrolls up and down the list of names, mentally going over who he ought to try. When he gets to a certain name, he wavers. 

Daniel. 

The last time he’d spoken to Daniel had been a week ago, something about Bahrain. Max sent a meme, they had a short conversation, and Daniel ended it with a stupid gif. It was all as usual. Texting Daniel now—without anything to talk about, when it’s still so soon since their last conversation—would be pointedly unusual. They’re not like that—not like that _anymore,_ at least.

Max opens their messages. He should click off and go to somebody else, somebody who would make sense for him to be talking to. But he wavers. 

**Max 22:31**

_How do you do this?_

Whatever, it’s fine. Daniel doesn’t respond right away, which feels a lot less fine. Max doesn’t know why he’d expected him too, especially when—fuck, is he in Australia or LA right now? He’s mentally counting it out—LA would be mid-afternoon probably, but if he’s in Australia there’s no way—

**Daniel 22:33** ****

_Well hello to you too_

_Do what?_

**Max 22:33**

_This._

_Not race._

Daniel’s typing bubble appears and disappears multiple times. What was Max thinking, asking him something like that? Max hardly knows what he’s asking himself, and it’s completely different for Daniel, anyway, on top of the fact that they’re not exactly in the same position they were last time Daniel was giving him mentorly advice. 

**Daniel 22:36**

_well_

_I miss it sometimes_

_which is closer to what i think youre really trying to get at, btw_

_but we all miss it. It just gets easier when you have other things to do_

**Max 22:36**

_It feels like 2020 all over again_

_Like I’m waiting for the szn to start even though it already has._

**Daniel 22:37**

_I get that_

_idk what to tell you really except to give it time_

_you could always go back_

**Max 22:37**

_Fuck no_

_I made my decision._

Daniel’s typing bubble doesn’t show up again. Max rubs his thumbs together, wanting to say something more, but what can he say? This is new territory, and he has no idea what the rules of engagement are here. Surely that wouldn’t have crossed a line for the Daniel he knew, but his Daniel and this one aren’t one and the same.

Max stares for far too long at the empty screen. When he gives up after several silent minutes, he’s kicking himself and even more unsettled than before. That hadn’t helped much at all (give it time, really?) and now he’s stressing about Daniel to boot. Good to know that even after all these years, stressing about Daniel’s opinion of him feels the same as it had when he was a self-conscious teenager. 

He’s aggressively scrolling through instagram again when a reply notification pops up. Max’s eyes widen—so Daniel hadn’t left?—and he taps the notification immediately.

**Daniel 22:55**

_Lol. there’s the max i know_

His face flushes on reflex. Daniel still teases him—he teases everyone, no surprise—but somehow this doesn’t feel like that. Max can’t even remember the last time Daniel said his name, typed or otherwise, and this is…

Stupid. He needs to go to bed.

— 

On Saturday, Max accidentally sees Nico Rosberg while he’s on a run. 

It happens less often than people expect for Monaco, especially because Max is such a homebody these days, but it’s still often enough. Depending on the person, he can usually get away with a smile or wave, but of course that won’t suffice for Nico. 

They exchange pleasantries. Max asks about the kids, they’re good, Nico asks about his hiatus, it’s good. Everything is good, including the weather.

“Will I see you in China, then?” Nico asks. He’s watching Max carefully, in the way he watches everyone. Max is no less disturbed by it ten years later than when he’d first experienced it.

“No?” Max asks. “Why would you?”

Nico quirks a brow. “I don’t know, PR, team stuff, fun. Are you not going to any of the races?”

Max technically isn’t involved at all with Red Bull anymore, from a contractual standpoint. He hadn’t cut all ties obviously, but he’d made it clear that he’s not interested in doing anything RB-related over his hiatus. Of course _Nico_ wouldn’t presume anyone to choose a clean break over the alternative—and Max honestly doesn’t know what to think about the idea of going to his old job during a hiatus from said job for fun.

“I don’t have anything planned,” he says. “But I don’t know, I might go to a few. I’m taking things as they come.”

Nico’s nose scrunches. It’s awful and annoying and reminds Max far too much of what he’d thought of Nico Rosberg when he was 12 or 13. 

“That’s a good outlook,” Nico says. “I have promo with Sky, and I’m going to do a vlog for it. When I come back, maybe I could finally get you on the podcast again? I’m not going to Spain, and it sounds like neither are you.”

Max had been on Nico’s podcast—once—and will never make that mistake again—although he does take private pleasure in knowing that it’s still one of his most viewed episodes. Nico has been trying to get him on again for years, at this point. The fact that Max actually considers it this time is personally alarming—maybe the days alone in his apartment really _are_ messing with his head.

“Maybe, I don’t know what I’ll be up to,” Max says instead. “But have fun in China.”

Nico smiles, halfway between warmth and glib. “I will. Let me know on the podcast, and—if there’s anything you want to do media-wise, let me know that as well. I’m sure you could get a spot anywhere you want, but I could get it for you faster.”

Max nods, because it’s easier than saying “no” and having Nico question him or do some sort of number-crunching in his head, and they’re both on their way again. 

Thankfully, Max isn’t as annoyed anymore by the time he gets back to his apartment. It’s lucky that he’d seen Nico on a run instead of grocery shopping, because at least with a run he can pound pavement until thoughts about anything other than showering and eating leave his head. 

As soon as he’s through the door, he sets his keys down and unlaces his shoes. He takes off his shirt on the way to the bathroom—he’s really looking forward to this shower, now that’s he’s thought about. 

He’s just grabbed a fresh towel from the closet when his phone rings. He hadn’t been expecting anyone, but he takes it out of his pocket—he’ll have to, anyway, when he takes his shorts off—and checks the caller ID.

His breath catches, just slightly. His dad?

If it were anyone else, he’d ignore it with no regret. If it were serious, they’d call again, and Max would pick up the second time, and if it wasn’t, he’d take his shower in peace and then call or text after to see what was up. If it were anyone else, it would be simple.

But he can’t just ignore his dad.

Max picks up. “Hello, papa.”

“Max. What are you up to today?” Jos asks.

It isn’t entirely unprecedented. Jos hadn’t been nearly as involved in his life since he’d moved up to Red Bull in 2016, when his dad had decided for himself (with a bit of pressure from Christian, Max now understands) to let the team sort out Max’s schedule and strategy, but things have shifted again. Now that he’s not racing anymore, it’s like his dad is back to being his manager—except he has no idea when he will call or what his expectations will be, or why he’s being managed at all.

“Well, I just came back from a run,” Max says. 

“Good, good,” Jos says. “And what have you eaten?”

Max’s stomach twists, for multiple reasons. “I was about to shower when you called, and then I was going to get lunch. I haven’t eaten yet.” He can practically see the way his dad’s eyes would narrow, if he were here. 

“What are you talking about, you haven’t eaten?”

“I woke up late and didn’t feel like breakfast,” Max answers. 

Jos pauses. “I see.”

Silence. Max lets his eyes trace over the tile pattern on the floor, considering his options, of which there are very few.

He just wants to take his shower.

“Is there a problem with that?” He settles on. 

“Yes,” Jos says, like it’s obvious—which it is, Max supposes, since he’d asked that rhetorically. “You think because you aren’t racing, that you can let yourself go? How will you be ready for next season if you can’t even wake up on time or stick to a diet?”

Max fixes his gaze on the doorknob. They’ve had this conversation several times, with varying degrees of anger on either side. “I already told you, I don’t think I’m going back next season.”

“And _I_ already told _you_ , you’d be a complete idiot not to. The longer you wait, the less likely you’ll have a seat.” 

“I’m a world champion. I’d get a seat, even if it isn’t next season,” Max reasons. 

“Maybe for a backmarker team. You want to spend the rest of your career in a Renault like Alonso?” Jos asks. It’s barely an insult—it’s not like Alonso would even care, at this point, he’s finally officially retired now—but Max still hates it when his father uses other drivers as threats.

“I mean,” Max starts. “Maybe. They’re not too far off pace, and the big regulations changes in ‘29 will mix things up again.”

“Well, then it’s too bad that even they wouldn’t sign you if you don’t take your health seriously.” 

Max squeezes his eyes shut. After another long pause, he relents. “Okay.” There’s little point in arguing with his dad these days, no matter what he’s talking about, and the sooner he gets out of this conversation the sooner he can shower and move on with his day. 

Jos sighs. “You know I care about you, your career. It may seem trivial, but you’ll be back soon enough, and you need to be ready. It would be embarrassing to have you return to a failing team—I just want to protect you from that. Do you understand?”

Another silence. 

“Yeah.” Max swallows hard. “Thanks.”

“Smart boy. Talk soon, yes?”

“Right,” Max says.

“Alright, Max. Good bye.” The line clicks dead as soon as he says it.

After a moment, Max mechanically finishes undressing and starts his shower. The hot water feels good on his skin, although his enthusiasm is drained compared to what it had been when he’d gotten home. 

He and his dad had fought—massively—when Max told him he wouldn’t be racing this season. A few months on, his dad is speaking to him again, but things still aren’t back to normal. Whenever Jos calls, Max feels like he’s 16 and a child, rather than 29 and a three-time world champion, but still: at least they’re talking.

Max finishes his shower faster than usual and walks back to his room to get dressed. He hadn’t really been tired before he showered—he’d just woken up, after all—but as he slips into a clean pair of joggers, his bed looks almost supernaturally appealing. He’s a little lightheaded and his stomach is still turning uncomfortably, but more than that he’s almost numb. He lays down on top of the covers, without even realizing he’s doing it before it’s happened; it’s like his body is on autopilot and he’s just along for the ride.

He supposes he can just eat in a few minutes.

— 

Max isn’t sure exactly when he falls asleep, but he must, because by the time he checks the time again it’s well past six. His eyes are dry and his mouth feels full of cotton, and he’s _starving_ —which is understandable, considering it’s been nearly 24 hours since he’d last eaten anything at this point. He’d planned to try to cook again tonight, but he doesn’t have the patience for it anymore.

He decides to order from his favorite Thai place a block away. It’ll be quick, and maybe the spice will wake him up a little more. He feels like something clicked back into place with that weird nap—no more autopilot—but now he’s just pissed he somehow wasted an entire day doing nothing and is right back to the same restlessness he’d been feeling all week. 

He stumbles out of bed to go look around the apartment for his phone. After he finds it (bathroom counter, duh, where he should’ve checked first) and places his order, he heads back to the kitchen to wait.

Max looks through his messages idly. He hadn't missed much in the past several hours, and when he gets to a certain name, he barely registers it. That is, he barely registers it until he reads the message that was sent along with it—and then rereads it. And then reads it one more time, because, what the fuck?

**Daniel 14:23**

_Hey, I was thinking. Why don’t you come down to Perth for a week or two?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from 400 lux by lorde :') if you're interested, i listened mainly to lorde and phoebe bridgers writing this... it'll be good, but there's some sadness to come lmaooo sorry! 
> 
> My first long fic in f1!! I plan to update every few days instead of weekly because I'm really excited for yall to read it omg. Kudos/comment appreciated if you enjoyed.
> 
> LMFAO and now some real notes: ultimate hc baby max had a crush on nico and is very annoyed by it now. also apologies for any/all american slang in this, either out of their mouths or in max’s head! I try my best to keep things vaguely european (or neutral) but things slip by me inevitably. same with trying to insert aussie slang--i’m doing my best, but my best mostly includes reading twenty articles about slang in western aus which isn’t much compared to irl.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i acquired a beta! thank you to vivalechat on tumblr for giving this a read for me before posting :)

“What the fuck?” Max practically shouts.

“You’re getting into a habit of starting conversations halfway through, huh?” Daniel laughs down the line. “I take it you saw my text?” 

“Yeah, asshole, I did. What do you mean, come down to Perth?” Max hardly recognizes the weirdness of it all—that he’s calling Daniel, that Daniel’s laughing and Max is calling him an asshole—because the weirdness of the question Daniel’s asked him supercedes it all.

“Exactly what it sounds like. I’m going home tomorrow from LA, and then other than a flyaway wedding later on I’ll be home all month. You should come visit,” Daniel says. He sounds breezy, like always, but Max knows there’s more to be found here. “If you’re not too busy, anyway.”

Max has to take a minute to process… all of that. 

“How would that even—what, so I come down and do outdoorsy shit with you for a week? Now?”

Daniel snorts. “‘Outdoorsy shit’ would probably be part of it, yeah, but there’s more than that to do as well. Not a lot, granted, but that’s just part of the beauty of Perth! It would be super chill, and you could stay at the farm with me, so no need to worry about a hotel or food. My parents moved back closer to town—it’s easier for Dad—but they’re on vacation right now anyway, so no chance of you being awkwardly surrounded by Ricciardos either.”

Max is pretty sure it _will_ be awkward, with or without Daniel’s parents. “Let me get this straight. So I’m just supposed to pack up, book a plane ticket, and come chill at your farm for a week.”

“Yup,” Daniel says, popping the ‘p.’ 

“Why?” Max must sound a little hysterical at this point; he certainly feels like it.

Daniel takes a beat to reply. “Well, I was thinking about what you texted the other day,” he says, and if that isn’t a jolt and a half to Max already. “And I think it would help you to get out of that apartment for a while. Obviously however you’re feeling is different than what I was, but it really helped me after—” Daniel pauses. “After everything, really. So, yeah, I think it’d help you too.”

Everything. That’s the crux of it, and if Max is honest, just about the only thing he can think about. 

“Daniel, I see you like once a year. We barely talk,” he says, frowning. “It’s been so long since we have.”

“I know,” Daniel says. “It’s not entirely selfless, I guess, my invitation. I do think it would help, but I reckon it’d be a good chance for us to finally catch up too.” 

Max lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “You would want to?” He asks, and he can’t help the way he sounds way too hopeful. 

“I would,” Daniel says, uncharacteristically serious. “I do. And besides—” his voice breaks into a more normal tone—”I’ve almost grown to miss that ugly mug of yours. Made picking up girls that much easier.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Max laughs. “Like you’ll be picking up any girls whether I’m there or not.”

“That’s what you think, Maxie, but you might want to invest in some ear plugs before you come down. I’m picking up chicks left and right down here.” 

Max can’t even think of anything to say back, can barely remind himself to carry on laughing—since when has Daniel started calling him _Maxie_ again?

Daniel must sense—something, Max doesn’t even want to know what, because he continues without waiting for Max to respond. “So that’s a yes?” 

Just as Max is about to reply, the doorbell rings. “Oh, shit, my food,” Max says. Daniel laughs, and Max does too, even though it’s hardly funny. He’s disgustingly giddy. “But yes. That’s a yes.”

“I’ll let you get to your food, then,” Daniel says. “We can work out the timing and everything later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I’ll text you.”

“Cheers,” Daniel says, and Max can hear the smile in his voice even as he hangs up.

Max tears into his dinner as soon as he has it unboxed. He’d forgotten everything while talking to Daniel—Nico, his dad, the weird nap—including how starving he was. It all comes flooding back, but, in the face of the conversation he’s just had, his earlier problems feel miniscule.

He does feel nervous. It may end up being awkward after all, and hell, some points definitely will be. He and Daniel haven’t properly hung out in nearly four years, and it’s not like there had been anything external stopping them from doing so for the majority of it.

Max doesn’t want to be too optimistic. They’ve both changed, drastically, and although they’d considered themselves more friends than colleagues during their seasons together, they’d never had the chance to explore what their friendship would be like without the direct influence of Formula 1. On top of that, there’s the bigger elephant in the room of why their friendship went dormant in the first place—the abrupt end to Daniel’s career, and Max’s inability to reach out afterward. It’s one of Max’s biggest regrets, and he’d assumed up until today that he’d live with it forever.

But at the same time, they’d had one phone conversation, and it was like everything was back to normal. To this day he’d never met anyone who was as easy to talk to as Daniel, and Max had felt comfortable again almost immediately despite all of their history. The fact that Daniel was thinking about Max and wants to help him, the fact that the way he plans to do that is by hanging out with Max and hopefully mending their friendship… he would worry it was an elaborate prank, if Daniel hadn’t sounded equally hopeful on the phone.

Max is jittery thinking about it the rest of the night. He wants to text Daniel already, but he figures that he should at least let him be until Max wakes up tomorrow. By the time he gets into bed, “Daniel” doesn’t sound like a word anymore with how much he’d been thinking it and staring at his contact name. Max’s thumb hovers over the messenger one last time as he’s about to shut down his phone and plug it in for the night, but ultimately, he has to stop himself—he can’t go in too much too soon. This is an unexpected second chance—a second chance he doesn’t deserve, honestly—and he can’t do anything that might fuck it up. 

His mind is still racing, recounting the details of their conversation and what’s about to be set into motion. Normally it’s vague restlessness that keeps him up at night, but tonight it’s entirely due to his nervousness and excitement about going to Australia. A second chance with Daniel—and he might finally be able to kick the restlessness and start to answer some of the questions he’s been avoiding to boot.

—

Max does end up texting Daniel the next morning, and they go back and forth all day. They decide it would be best to do it before Daniel has to leave for the wedding, which gives them just over two weeks to work with. Max also wants to get there as quickly as possible—now that the idea is in his head, now that he knows Daniel wants to see him, he’s practically dying to.

They call each other one more time to chat while Max looks up flights. With how long of a flight it would be, there aren’t a lot of options—but there is one the next night. Max jokes, semi-seriously, about booking it; Daniel, completely seriously, tells him to send it.

So he does.

It’s crazy, it’s probably the most last-minute thing he’s ever done, overtakes aside. He spends the rest of the night and the next day packing, and less than 24 hours later, he’s on the first of his flights. The plane rides give him a lot of time to overthink, and he tries valiantly to manage expectations, but it’s impossible. 

Soon enough, the shortest 24 hours of his life later, he’s landed in Perth. Max had offered to get himself an uber, but Daniel had insisted on picking him up from the airport, despite the fact that by the time he’d landed it would be past one in the morning. It was such a Daniel thing to insist, Max had basically no chance of arguing.

And here he is.

Deboarding and getting his luggage feels like a dream. His hands had been shaky practically the entire plane ride, but now that the only thing standing between him and Dan is a short walk and their own ability to pick each other out in a crowd, Max feels strangely calm. He’s insularly focused, almost like he’s waiting for the lights to go out above the track.

Daniel had told him he’d be waiting outside the airport coffee shop near his gate, and as soon as Max catches sight of it, he sees Dan as well.

Max doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, really. Daniel is Daniel: same tattoos, same wild curls (though Max is almost certain he dyes them now), same lithe but strong frame, same beard and hooked nose. 

Daniel’s gaze finally lands on Max through the rest of the passengers. Same wide grin, same slight dimples, same spark in his eyes that Max used to know so well.

Max can’t help but smile back. He drags his luggage behind him, forcing himself to walk at a normal speed. As soon as he’s within hugging distance, he’s enveloped in Daniel’s arms, and whatever nervousness he may have been holding onto underneath the calm seeps out of him instantly. Same brown sugar vanilla body wash.

Daniel pulls back first; Max may not have been the original hugger of the two of them, but Daniel had turned him into one after years of conditioning, and he still hasn’t kicked the habit. 

“Max,” he says, flicking the brim of Max’s cap. “Nice to see your hair hasn’t changed at all.” He doesn’t look nervous, necessarily, but his shoulders are tensed and there’s an inkling of something considering lurking in his eyes.

Max fixes his cap. “Same to you—how’s that hair transplant working out again?” 

Daniel laughs, and his shoulders relax. “Swimmingly, thanks for asking—now why don’t we get out of here?”

Daniel leads as they make their way out to the garage Daniel’s parked in. It hasn’t been four years since he’s seen Daniel walk, obviously, but seeing his limp—although it’s slight—still takes Max out for a moment. His stomach twists; if he’d been a decent friend to Daniel, he would be well used to it by now. 

Max pushes it out of his mind. Second chance.

“I keep most of the cars in LA,” Daniel says, remote unlocking his truck. “I know you’re used to your Aston, so hopefully this isn’t slumming it too much for you.”

“If this bothered me, I probably wouldn’t do much good on a farm, would I?” Max asks. Daniel laughs and opens the door to the backseat for him to load in his luggage. 

“I s’pose not, but if you were expecting to spend your visit as a farmhand you might have to think again,” Daniel says as he opens his own door. “The caretakers might not take well to you coming in and disturbing the alpacas.”

When Max gets in the car, he’s newly overcome by just how comfortable all of this is. Daniel’s already put on music—which Max would bet anything is Alexisonfire, although a lot of it sounds the same to him—and there’s vanilla air freshener wafting from the vents. Max fixes his eyes on the little orange McLaren matchbox car on the dashboard as they drive, listening to Daniel chat on about Perth as energetically as if it were two in the afternoon instead of the morning.

“I have some ‘outdoorsy shit’ planned, per your request, but we’ll have to take the days as they come with hikes,” Daniel says, shifting to talking about what he has in mind for Max’s stay. “I have good days and bad days with my leg. Unless you want to go exploring without me—which you can if you want, as long as you aren’t afraid of the creepy-crawlies.”

Max glances from the window to Daniel. “That would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

Daniel chuckles, but his eyes remain fixed on the road. “I mean, you could probably clear your head with or without me, mate. Probably better without to be honest.”

“Fine, half the purpose then,” Max says. He pauses, but he’s always been more blunt than anything else. “You know I’m not only here to clear my head.”

Daniel’s eyebrows raise, face slackening momentarily, but just as quickly his face smooths back into a grin. “Aww, you can’t bear to be apart from me even for a day, huh?”

“It seems like _you_ can’t bear to spend a night away from me either, based on the lack of clubbing in that schedule. What about all your hot girls?”

“Oh, you know you’re the only hot girl for me, Maxie,” Daniel teases. 

Max flounders and feels the tips of his ears go red, so thank god it’s dark outside. Daniel has a lazy grin on his face, but after a beat his eyes widen as he processes what he just said. It’s exactly the kind of remark that would’ve passed between them a few years ago, but things are different now, and Max knows Daniel is wondering the exact same things he is.

“I mean—if that’s okay? Wait, no, I mean—” Daniel cuts himself off. “Jeepers. You know what I mean.”

Daniel glances over and catches eyes with Max, and, when he does—neither of them can help it, really. They bust out laughing nearly simultaneously, and Max has to wipe his eyes several times before he can bring it back down to a giggle.

“Shit, you still know how to make a girl feel special, huh? Are you that nice to all your girlfriends?” Max says. Questions answered, then. All of this feels astoundingly normal, as if not only is he meant to be here, he’d never left in the first place.

Daniel’s eyes are slits with how wide he’s smiling; if it were anyone else, Max would be concerned for their ability to stay on the road. “Only the really hot ones,” Daniel says, shooting one last grin to Max before refocusing on the drive.

—

When they arrive on the farm, Max regrets even more that his flight came in at such an awful time. It’s too dark to see much of anything, but the autumn air is crisp and feels great on his skin. The view, he’s sure, would be equally appealing.

Daniel once again opens the door for Max to take out his luggage, and Max hands him his carry-on so he can take out his larger suitcase.

“I hope I packed enough clothes,” Max says as they walk up to the house. “This was all so last-minute—I basically just put everything clean in here. Which is less than you’d expect.”

“From anyone else, yes, but not from you,” Daniel says. “Your hatred for doing laundry continues to be your worst character flaw.”

“Fuck off!” Max defends. “I have much worse flaws than that.” Daniel laughs, and Max had honestly forgotten how much he loves being the cause of that.

Daniel shows him around the house a bit as he leads him to the guest room. The downstairs is spacious and open, the lounge, dining area, and kitchen all interconnected and framed by full story windows. It’s much less lavish than his house in LA, which Max has no complaints about—he’s far more in the mood for the blankets folded over the back of the sofa than the bottles of vodka on every flat surface that he’d find in LA. 

Daniel leads him upstairs, where there’s a hallway with three doors. “This is my office,” Daniel says, opening the first door to the left and flicking on the lights for Max to look in. It’s all basically as one would expect, a desk and artsy racing photographs on the walls, a shelving unit with some of Daniel’s trophies and helmets—and, Max realizes with a jolt, one of his own.

Daniel must’ve noticed what he was looking at, because he chuckles and says, “Don’t worry, I’ve still got your other one, too. The collection moved down here a few years ago, and I’ve kept all the helmets—except one that got lost in the move. Sorry, Charles.”

Max laughs, silently grateful because he’s petty. “I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that.”

“He wasn’t! And of course he noticed right away and turned on the puppy eyes immediately,” Daniel says, flipping the light back off and shutting the door. “I felt bad too, to be honest, it was the one from his first season at Ferrari.”

The second door to the left is already open when they get to it, and Daniel ushers him inside. “And here’s your room,” he says. “There’s no bathroom attached, but if you’re really desperate you can use the one in mine—door on the right—otherwise the one downstairs works splendidly.”

“Good to know,” Max says, “and now you can’t complain when I wake you up at three in the morning using your bathroom.”

“As long as it isn’t tonight—I’m beat. It’s probably three in the morning already.” Daniel chuckles and runs a hand through his curls. “You need anything else before we turn in? Your jet lag will be killer—sorry, mate—but I’m guessing you don’t want melatonin.”

“No,” Max says, some sort of feeling stirring inside him with the knowledge that Daniel remembers something as small as that. “I tried to line up my sleep schedule on the plane, but yeah, tomorrow might suck. Although since I kept you awake so late, maybe we’ll both just sleep through the day.”

“That doesn’t sound half bad,” Daniel says. “G’night then.”

“Night,” Max says, and Daniel shoots him one last grin before he leaves, shutting Max’s door behind him.

It still hasn’t really sunk in—the fact that he’s here with Daniel, and will be for the next two and a half weeks. From the moment he’d seen Daniel in the airport, it’s like they’d been on the exact same wavelength, like nothing had changed since they were last hanging out. Max knows it won’t all be that easy—but he wants it to be.

Max isn’t tired yet, but thanks to his sleep on the plane he is getting there. He decides he might as well unpack his clothes while he’s up, and as he puts everything in the dresser, he hears Daniel moving around in his room getting ready for bed. Just hearing people shuffling around in their homes is one of Max’s favorite parts of staying with anyone, probably because he’s so unused to it living alone. It’s different, having someone at home _with_ you rather than just around you like in an apartment building or hotel. It’s nice. 

And something about knowing it’s Daniel making the noise makes it even better.

Daniel eventually goes to bed, and Max follows. Looking around, Max had been struck by just how lived-in Daniel’s house is even on first impression. The shoes by the door, the pictures on the walls, the rug in his lounge, all of it had practically screamed Daniel. The only exception seems to be the guest room Max is occupying: there’s a print on one of the walls, but other than that, the room is neutral and grey. 

Max is still overwhelmingly excited, but the longer he lays without sleeping, the more the restlessness from his own apartment creeps its way back into his mind. Max had almost hoped that, somehow, just seeing Daniel would be enough to reset whatever is going wrong in his brain.

He’s vaguely disappointed. No such luck.

—

Max and Daniel both end up sleeping in until the early afternoon, which is unusual for Max, but practically a thing of wonder for Daniel who still prefers waking up by nine at the latest. Max is groggy when he first wakes, but by the time he’s eaten he’s feeling a lot better—the jet lag hasn’t completely left him, but with how used to travelling he is, it’s easy enough to ignore.

They go out around the property on one of Daniel’s buggies, and Daniel points out all the sights Max missed when he arrived last night. Daniel still doesn’t do much farmwork himself, but from how knowledgeable he is he’s clearly involved in everything, from the vineyard to the beehives to the livestock. Daniel seems content to just chatter on endlessly about the farm and the plans he and the caretakers have for it, and Max finds himself smiling as he takes all of it in—both the scenery and Daniel’s unabashed enthusiasm.

That, too, is something unchanged from when Max had last known Daniel. It’s not that Daniel is exactly the same; little things have changed, from Daniel looking older to the way he’ll sometimes tell jokes or slip into tones Max isn’t used to. But while Max had privately worried that the changes might be stark enough that he’d shy away from Daniel, that they’d only serve as a constant reminder of what he’d missed, in reality he finds himself more drawn to them than anything. Daniel is Daniel, and just as when they first became teammates, Max’s desire to know him outweighs the doubts in his mind. 

They spend the next couple days on the farm, racing dirt bikes through the brush and swimming, staging competitions for things even as stupid as who can flip the highest pancake. Daniel may not be in F1 anymore, and he also has to be mindful of his leg, but both of those have barely hampered his athleticism. Max can understand why—with how many options there are and how much fun he’s had doing them, all the physical activities feel closer to playing outside than any sort of training. It’s undeniably liberating; Max feels fresher in two days than he has over the last month in Monaco. 

The first outing Daniel has planned for them does turn out to be a hike, on one of Daniel’s favorite trails. The day of, they wake up a little after five to get ready and beat the crowds, and when they set out it’s still just before sunrise. They chat idly in the car, but the drive is comfortably quiet for the most part. As Max watches the sky start to light up outside his window, gradually brightening the terrain and waking the city up, he understands more and more why Daniel speaks of home so highly. 

They pull into a parking lot with a few other cars, and Daniel parks near the mouth of the trail. 

“Here we are!” he says, face glowing behind his sunglasses. He reaches into the back and pulls up the two packs he’d brought for them, handing one to Max before they both get out of the car. 

It’s still fairly cool for Australia, only somewhere in the high teens, but it’s supposed to heat up as the day goes on. For how randomly this trip had been planned, the April weather so far has been perfect for Max—warm enough to get away with shorts and tee every day, but not the sweltering heat he’d pictured every Australian day to be like. Watching the way the sun streams on Daniel as he leads them to the trail isn’t half bad either.

Daniel pauses them at the mouth of the trail. “Right or left? It’s a loop, so we’ll see everything either way.”

Max snorts. “Shouldn’t you decide that? You know which way is better.”

“There’s no better, Maxie, it’s just a different way of looking at things,” Daniel says, nodding to himself like it’s some piece of ancient wisdom. He lowers his sunglasses in a way that is probably meant to be intimidating. “And I picked this trail in the first place, so _you_ have to decide how we start.” 

“That makes no sense, but okay,” Max says. “Right.”

Daniel grins and pumps his fist. “I knew you had some hidden intelligence locked away in there.”

“If you wanted right, why not just say right, dumbass?” Max asks, but he can’t keep the smile off his face either.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Daniel teases, and they’re off.

The trail is beautiful—if Max had thought the views from before were nice, these are something else entirely. The greenery is lush and tangled, verging onto the path at times, and there’s little spots of colorful flowers everywhere that Daniel seems to always know the names of. Eventually they get to an area where skinny brown trees start closing in on the road, and Max feels oddly comforted rather than boxed in. They cross over a small bridge, and Max can’t resist the urge to reach out and run his hand over some of the trees as he goes.

“If you think that’s something, wait about five minutes,” Daniel says, chuckling.

And he’s right—a few minutes later, Max’s eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

Up ahead, the thin trees weave together around and over the path, creating a tunnel of sorts with peaks of morning sunlight streaming through. It’s the kind of spot children would dream of discovering, practically designed to be used as a portal to a more interesting imaginary world.

“Told you,” Daniel says, and Max can hear the contented smile in his voice. 

Max snaps a few pictures, including one of Daniel and having Daniel take one of him, and then he leads the way through the tunnel. It isn’t long before the trees start branching out again, and Max finds himself almost wanting to turn around and go back through one more time. 

“Sick, yeah? And we’re almost to the falls now,” Daniel says. 

They continue on, Max more confident in the lead. They cross over several more bridges, and he’s charmed by the variations—some pass over streams and some don’t, some have railings and others trust you to keep yourself on path, even the type of wood varies. He slows down on one to look down over the creek flowing underneath it, when he realizes that Daniel had stopped talking—and walking—behind him.

Max glances over his shoulder, and Daniel’s on his phone at the start of the bridge.

“Seriously?” Max asks. _He’s_ supposed to be the gen-Zer with the phone addiction between them—Daniel had certainly complained about it enough in the paddock. “Why didn’t you say anything, I was about to go on without you!”

Daniel laughs and slides his phone back into his pocket. “It was just for a second! And you say that like you weren’t walking at tortoise speed already—it would’ve been perfectly easy to catch up to you.”

“Got it, so if I trip into the waterfall I’ll know not to count on you to get me out. You’ll probably be thirty meters back posting an instagram story,” Max says.

“High-performance professional racing driver Max Verstappen falling into a waterfall—that would _be_ the insta story, baby. Fucking hilarious mental image,” Daniel says, and Max rolls his eyes.

“Less funny when I’ve cracked my neck at the bottom of the cliff and you have my mum to reckon with,” Max says, and Daniel acts out an overexaggerated shiver.

“You’re right,” Daniel says. “Sophie loves me, but not that much.”

They walk side by side for a bit, and the conversation naturally leads back into racing, as it usually does. Even without being permanently ensnared in F1 themselves, their lives would be practically surrounded—Daniel’s niece and nephew are well into karts, now, as are Max’s little siblings and both of Vic’s sons. 

“The older he gets, the more I’m holding my breath,” Daniel says. His nephew is around ten now, which is when a lot of kids start quitting as school introduces them to other things. “He’s not said yet that he wants to make a career out of it, but he’s looking really sharp in karts—and it scares the shit out of me, thinking about him in anything beyond that. I feel so bad for my sister—and my mum, for putting up with me.”

Max can’t disagree with that. It’s not that they had ever been unaware of the danger—if you were, you wouldn’t make it as far as they had. But it’s two entirely different things, racing yourself when you’re spiked on adrenaline and filled with ultimate self-confidence, and watching someone you care about do it when you’d still feel uneasy with them taking the wheel on a regular road.

“But who knows, maybe we’ll see him in F1 one day, following in Uncle Danny’s footsteps,” Daniel adds. “Which—that reminds me, are we going to be watching China next weekend?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Max’s eyebrows furrow. “Do you not watch all the races?” He’s sure there are some former drivers completely removed from their world, but even Seb, who may as well have stricken his name from the books of F1 with how little he shows up anywhere except throwback posts these days, still watches almost all the races as far as Max knows. 

Daniel glances over at him from behind his shades. “I do. I figured _you_ might not want to.”

“Me?” Max asks. ”What made you think that?”

They keep walking, but Daniel takes his time deciding on a response. “I didn’t start watching races regularly again until halfway through ‘25, honestly. The FOMO can get pretty intense if you wallow in it.”

Max frowns. “I wanted to leave, though,” he says quietly, and the implication is clear. 

Daniel pauses again, and it makes Max’s stomach turn uneasily. 

“Did you?” Daniel asks. They’re breezing over Daniel’s crash, apparently, and going straight to Max. He isn’t sure which option would be better; he’s been dreading both. 

“What? Of course I did,” Max says incredulously. “You think I lost my seat?”

“No, I didn’t mean—never mind that,” Daniel says. “Why did you want to?”

“I…” Max starts, his usual media trained excuses on the tip of his tongue. “I don’t know.” It sounds utterly stupid, to say it out loud, but at least it’s honest. 

Daniel hums. “See, this is where I would make fun of you for making impulse decisions, but I reckon this wasn’t one of those.”

“You try to lecture me on impulse decisions when you got me on a plane for this trip in all of two days,” Max says, trying to shift them back to safety a bit. “But, yeah. I decided as soon as I was out of contention last season.” What he doesn’t say is that he’d been thinking about it since before the season even started, but he thinks Daniel probably knows anyway. 

“Hey, you didn’t have to accept. This impulse decision is at least 50% your fault,” Daniel says. “So Mexico, right? But what made you decide?”

“I already told you, I don’t know,” Max says.

“No, I mean—hold on,” Daniel says. They stop walking. “It’s like when I left Red Bull, there was a single moment when I finally decided once and for all that I was done. What was it for you?” 

Max has to think about it. The whole weekend had been shit—they’d known Max had to win or he was out, and everyone at RBR plus his dad had been on his ass the entire time. To top things off, he’d ended up with a grid penalty during qualifying. The fact that he fought to P2 was a miracle.

“It was on the podium,” Max says, as soon as the realization filters into his mind. “I got second, and I had to get first to stay in. I probably would’ve had to win Brazil and Abu Dhabi too, assuming Charles and George didn’t suddenly shit the bed, but I’d gone into the weekend focused on just that next win.” He pauses. 

“I was disappointed, angry, obviously, but on the podium I guess I just realized that even if I had gotten first, in the end I wouldn’t have felt any better about it.”

Daniel is silent for a moment. “Huh,” he eventually intones, and when Max glances over, Daniel is looking at him almost appraisingly.

“What were you expecting?” Max asks. He feels exposed—and he doesn’t particularly like it.

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” Daniel says. “Anyway, we’re almost to the falls now—get your sexy hiking face ready for pics.” It’s a deliberate distraction, which usually Max would be grateful for, but not now. Not yet.

Daniel moves to start walking again, and Max grabs one of his arms.

“Wait,” he says. “What was it for you?” 

Daniel’s face is slack again, just like on the way home from the airport. “I think you know,” Daniel says, mouth quirking back into a smile. “But anyway, it’s time to appreciate the great outdoors.”

— 

The falls are tucked snugly into the side of the cliffs, and without the sound of rushing water, Max might not have even seen them. It’s not the typical idea of a waterfall, with metric tons of water crashing down over the side of a mountain in a steep drop; instead, the water slides smoothly over the ridges and outcroppings of the rock face, only rejoining the brook below when it’s passed the test of making it down the mountain. The water is nearly crystal clear, and Max has to resist the urge to veer off the path to run his hands in it.

They get their pictures, including a few with what Daniel has deemed his sexy hiking face, and thankfully neither of them fall and break their necks for the ‘gram. By pure chance, another pair of hikers comes by from the opposite direction while they’re doing it, which allows them to get one of the two of them with the entire valley as a backdrop—plus, they get to pet their cute dog. Max considers that an absolute win.

They fall into a natural rhythm over the rest of the hike. Daniel is an instinctive storyteller and joker, and he’s always been able to draw those qualities out of Max as well. They walk and talk about anything that comes to mind, reminiscing on their days in the paddock and weaving together pictures of what their lives have looked like after, cracking jokes and going off on stupid tangents, and for the first time Max feels almost completely unselfconscious. Being on the farm was one thing; it certainly made Max more friendly and open, but not in the same way he feels now. Surrounded by nature with only Daniel as company—especially after he’d already opened up slightly about his hiatus—it’s like they’re in their own little world.

There’s still one elephant in the room, but Max finds he isn’t dreading it so much anymore. They don’t exactly talk about the crash—or the end of their friendship, for that matter—but they don’t shy away from it either, which Max is surprisingly grateful for. He hadn’t known what to expect of Daniel, but it doesn’t come as a surprise that he’s relatively well-adjusted. What remains to be seen is whether they’ll actually be able to overcome their past or if they’ll live in this comfortable limbo forever.

By the time they hit the two hour mark, they’re back to relaxed silence. They get to pet another dog, but other than that it’s largely uneventful—at least until Daniel suddenly turns off the path.

“Daniel?” Max calls out, because he may not be as experienced of a hiker as Daniel, but even he knows the most basic rule of the road.

Daniel grins playfully over his shoulder. “Come down here, this is my favorite part.” Daniel doesn’t stop, and Max shakes his head before stepping off the path and following Daniel a little ways down the mountain.

When they stop, Max can’t help the small noise of appreciation that slips out at the view. Framed by the trees surrounding them, he can see for kilometers in every direction. The fluctuation of the valley gives way to the flat land, all of it a mix of desert brown and bush with buildings dotted sparsely here and there. In the distance, the little bubble of downtown Perth rises up in the morning sky.

“That’s home,” Daniel says, a little hoarse. Max doesn’t blame him—he shouldn’t have any attachment to this place, and yet he finds himself breathless as well.

“It’s beautiful,” Max says, eyes trained on the horizon. He’d heard Perth called one of the most isolated cities over and over, from Daniel and the world at large, but something about seeing it like this is what finally makes it click. Even though Bree is a small town, Max had never been far from all the cities of Europe, and he’d spent enough time traveling for karting that even if his hometown had been too lonely he wouldn’t have noticed. To see Perth surrounded by endless untouched land, and to know that he’s not soon to see anything other than that—it’s a new feeling.

He supposes it should make him feel isolated, but it doesn’t; he feels warm.

When Max glances over to Daniel, Daniel is already looking at him, the same appraising look on his face as before. He looks back over the horizon, and then shoots Max another satisfied smile.

“Good trail, huh?” he asks. They start back up to rejoin the actual path.

Max laughs. “I’m surprised you’d undersell it with just a ‘good.’”

“Amazing, wonderful, bloody fucking brilliant, that’s all implied,” Daniel says with a wave. “You know, this is only our what, third or fourth hike together? But if you planned on winning the lifetime trail-picking award, you might as well pack your bags. Pretty sure I’ve won already.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Max says. “Monaco has like three trails in the first place, you have an advantage.”

“I’ll give you the entirety of Europe to choose from, then we both have a continent,” Dan says cheekily. “But I’d still win.”

The conversation devolves from there, and even if Max privately agrees with Daniel’s proclamation, he’ll never admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you all so much for the love on the last ch!! the comments totally made my day :'')
> 
> story notes time:  
> I had to take some liberties with describing Daniel’s house. It looks like there is no upstairs irl, so that’s one thing, but i also HATE the flooring he has so imagine it’s whatever you want other than that lmfao. I chose some nice hardwood in my mental imaginings. 
> 
> The trail they go on in this chapter is [this one](https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/australia/western-australia/ellis-brook-to-bickley-reservoir?u=i) in Ellis Brook Valley, look through some of the photos because it is beauuutiful truly!!! gotta love it when you find an irl location that lines up with what you thematically want to express pog
> 
> anyway, thanks again for reading! i’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter 🥰


	3. Chapter 3

The days following their hike pass in a blur. Daniel is dedicated to giving him the whole Perth experience, as he calls it, so he takes them to a few touristy spots as well as some of his lesser known favorites. Daniel also decides on a whim that Max needs to experience Perth fine dining, which would be alright except that they’re wearing shorts when he decides it. (Somehow, they get let in anyway—maybe or maybe not because Daniel had flashed his black amex at the hostess— _”Lifestyle of the rich and famous,”_ he’d said afterward, only somewhat ironically.) Max’s favorite of their day trips is to the botanic gardens, which Daniel informs him is a very basic but respectable choice.

Exactly a week after Max’s arrival, Daniel decides to have a barbecue for Max and a few of his hometown friends. It’s all last minute—once again—so Max and Daniel end up going to the supermarket to pick up all the food and some extra beer. When they get back, Max expects to have a few hours to unwind and mentally prepare, but after a game and a half of FIFA on Daniel’s playstation, Max realizes that he hasn’t seen the owner of said playstation in a little too long.

Daniel clearly isn’t downstairs, so Max goes up, but there’s no answer when he knocks on Daniel’s door. He ends up finding him on the back deck lounging in a pool chair, wearing nothing but an apron and his swim shorts, the grill humming away beside him.

“You’re cooking already?” Max asks. 

Daniel lowers his sunglasses. “Of course! Low and slow, Maxie, don’t you know how to barbecue? You gotta treat your meat right.”

Max huffs a laugh. “Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. Low ‘n’ slow, like making sweet love to a new girlfriend,” Daniel sing-songs. “Or boyfriend, BBQ doesn’t discriminate.”

“Wow, thanks,” Max says, rolling his eyes, but he’s smiling too. “I feel really included right now.” Daniel has known Max is gay for years now, but it still sends a zing to his heart whenever Daniel is just casually fine with it. It’s a really fucking low bar, to be excited by _casual fineness,_ but he’s a professional athlete, and Daniel was one of his best friends and also a professional athlete. He’d had his reasons to worry. 

“Hey, maybe I was talking about my own sweet new boyfriend,” Daniel says with a laugh, which—what? “And now that you know how to grill, keep watch for a sec while I go take a leak.”

Daniel gets up and passes Max without preamble, and Max doesn’t even have time to process half of what just happened, but—

“Wait,” he says, and Daniel stops in the doorway. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming out? I would’ve sat out here with you.”

“Needy today?” Daniel chuckles, and Max flushes. “You were playing FIFA, I figured I’d give you some time alone before everyone comes over. Now, seriously, I’m gonna piss my pants.” 

Daniel goes inside, and Max sits heavily in one of the chairs. Daniel’s headspace is half air and half sexual innuendo, really, so the sweet love and girlfriend shit isn’t anything new, it’s just—since when has Daniel ever referred to _himself_ having a boyfriend?

Max knows Daniel has slept with a few men over the years, but he’d assumed that it was partly curiosity and partly just an aspect of the playboy lifestyle to him. Maybe that’s all that joke had been, too, but why would Daniel have even made it, if it was? It was barely a joke, and Max had seen the look on Daniel’s face when he said it. It was deliberate. 

Technically, nothing has changed. But the little part of Max that remains from when they were teammates, when Daniel had been the only thing on his mind outside of racing, disagrees and stirs awake in his gut.

— 

Max puts it out of his mind, mostly successfully, as he and Dan lounge around waiting for his friends to arrive. Max changes into his swim shorts too, but he knows not to tempt fate enough to take off his shirt unless the sun goes down or he’s actually swimming. He’s played with fire enough times to know not to risk fucking up the rest of his trip with a third degree sunburn.

He’s still vaguely nervous, but when Daniel’s friends finally do arrive, he realizes he didn’t have anything to worry about. Max gets introduced to everyone, and he’s impressed that when Daniel had said small he’d meant it—it’s only around ten people, including the spouses of a couple of his friends. It’s still slightly odd, because Max doesn’t know any of them while they all know him from being in F1 with Daniel, but if they think it’s weird to see him and Daniel together again they don’t mention it. Plus, just before the food finishes cooking, Michael and his wife arrive too.

Max has always liked Michael. He’s like a version of Daniel with a similar sense of humor and countenance, but with way more common sense and an appreciation for thinking things through. The only issue is that Michael most definitely knows everything that’s gone down—or hasn’t gone down, really—over the last four years. As far as Max is aware, Michael was one of the most important factors in keeping Daniel afloat through everything.

Max is glad Daniel had had someone—especially someone like Michael, who understands him and his needs so deeply. At the same time, seeing Michael now makes Max’s skin prickle. He feels overexposed, but he knows he has no one to blame for that but himself. 

By chance, he and Michael end up sitting next to each other after they eat. Daniel is finishing up at the grill with the help of one of the other guys, and the rest of the group is scattered between the deck and the pool. No one is paying them any attention.

“It’s good to see you,” Max says, because it’s true and he feels like he should say something. “Congratulations—I don’t know if I ever said anything, but I saw the pictures,” he adds, nodding to Michael’s wife in the pool. 

“Thanks,” Michael says. “It’s good to see you too. I was surprised, you know, when Dan said you’d be coming down.” Michael is smiling slightly, but Max knows exactly how similar he is to Daniel—which means that that smile could basically mean anything. 

He gets the feeling that Michael sitting next to him may not have been by chance after all. 

“Yeah, to be honest I was surprised too, when he asked me,” Max settles on.

“He was pretty stoked about it,” Michael says. “I certainly got an earful after you agreed.” Max shouldn’t be surprised that Daniel was talking to Michael about him, but he is—and he desperately wants to know more.

“I was the same way,” Max says. He doesn’t particularly enjoy talking about his emotions, but if he wants anything more out of Michael, he’s going to have to. “I’ve missed him.”

Michael chuckles. “I can tell.” 

Before Max has the opportunity to think about it too hard, a cheer rings out from the rest of the group. Max glances back up to the house to see Daniel carrying a few more cases of beer outside. 

“Listen,” Michael says, bringing Max’s attention back to him. “I don’t want to damper the mood or anything, but I need to know something.” Max nods at him to continue, swallowing hard.

“Let me preface this by saying that I think you’re a good person, Max, I really do,” he says, and Max feels his heart rate pick up ever-so-slightly. “I don’t doubt you have good intentions, but I need to know that you’re serious about fixing things. I need to know that you’re not going to run away this time.”

Max’s eyes widen. “I won’t,” he says, as sincere as he’s ever been in his life. “I am serious, I want to fix our friendship as much as he does. Letting things get to this point in the first place—it’s one of my biggest regrets.” There’s so much more he could say, so much he wants to say, but Michael doesn’t need to hear it—especially since he’s apparently getting it all from Daniel’s side already.

“Okay,” Michael says. The smile on his face is bigger now, more genuine, and Max feels himself start to relax. “It definitely took you two long enough, but you’re good for each other. I think it’ll be good for both of you.”

Michael’s wife waves him over from where she’s talking to a couple of the others, and Michael shoots him an apologetic look as he stands. “Sorry to cut things short but, for the record, Daniel’s missed you too,” he says, lowering his voice a bit. “Although I think you already knew that.”

—

The rest of the night goes smoothly, all things considered. Max had felt ill after his chat with Michael initially, both because of what it reminded him of and because Michael had doubted him, even if only a little. As the night wore on, though, it was easier and easier to focus more on the good parts of the conversation: that Michael gave him a sort of blessing, and that Daniel missed him too.

Of course, Max _had_ known that already. Daniel wouldn’t have asked him to come to the farm otherwise, and he certainly wouldn’t have gone so out of his way with the planning if he didn’t care. On top of that, too, were the little things—Daniel playing FIFA with him and hardly complaining about it, Daniel making dinners he knows Max will enjoy. The way Daniel looks at him sometimes.

It's still nice, though, to hear it said out loud. 

Eventually, Daniel’s friends start trickling out one-by-one. As he and Daniel see the last of them off, Daniel stretches and yawns deeply.

“Bloody hell, I can’t believe we still have to clean up,” Daniel says. “I’m ready to pass out right here.”

Max chuckles. “We? I thought this was your party.”

“Maxie,” Daniel whines, fixing his best puppy eyes on him. “You are one of the most intelligent, compassionate, and beautiful people I have ever seen. Please help me clean up.”

“Jesus,” Max says, flushing. “Are you drunk?” Max had only had three beers—he’s tipsy, if anything.

“Only a little,” Daniel says. “Just on beers. I don’t get sloshed on beers.” Max finds it a little hard to believe, given their present circumstances, but he’s exhausted too—the faster they clean up, the faster they get to bed.

Thankfully, there isn’t a ton of work to do. Daniel finishes cleaning the grill while Max washes the few dishes they’d used. Then they do a sweep of the deck and the pool, and they only find a couple of misplaced beer bottles and cups. Max goes inside to throw them away, and when he returns, Daniel is still lingering by the pool. 

“Maxie,” Daniel says again and grins when he sees him. “Thank you, you absolute legend. Did you have fun?”

Max walks around the pool to where Daniel is standing. “Yeah, it was fun.”

“I hardly even saw you,” Daniel pouts. “Where were you? And you didn’t swim, either!” Daniel gestures to his dry swim shorts and the shirt he never took off.

“I was here,” Max says. “But they’re your friends, and you invited them—of course they’re all going to be talking to you.”

“Still,” Daniel says. “They could be your friends, too."

Max quirks a brow. “I guess so, but you’ve known them all since you were kids, except their partners. It would be weird for me to just… join that.”

Daniel is looking at him now with an expression Max can’t decipher. “Maybe,” Daniel says. Max glances back over the pool toward the house, and Daniel adds, “But we can at least solve one problem right now.”

Max barely has time to register what he’s said and start to look over before Daniel has tackled him into the pool.

His eyes screw shut as the two of them are dunked under the water, and Max is glad he gasped on the way down or he would’ve been sucking in water. When they come up for air, Daniel is already giggling.

“Fuck, your face,” Daniel gasps out. “You looked like you saw a ghost! You looked like you _were_ a little ghost, you went all white.”

Max is too shocked to respond for a second, but then he starts giggling too, bewildered. 

“What the fuck? Daniel, why the hell did you do that?” Max would be mad, if he were completely sober or if it were anyone else, but he’s tipsy and it’s Daniel. “Now my shirt is all wet.”

“Easy enough fix for that,” Daniel says, and it’s only then that Max looks down and realizes that Daniel’s hands have been holding onto his waist since they got in the water.

Max is not drunk enough to justify this, at all, but he’s never claimed to be a saint either.

Daniel pushes his arms out of the way and tugs his shirt up, and soon enough, Max’s shirt is lying on the ground next to the pool and Daniel’s hands are back on his waist. Everything suddenly feels too hot, despite the fact that it’s almost too late at night to be swimming with how much colder it’s gotten. Max can feel the heat of every single finger of Daniel’s hands above the hem of his swim shorts, and if he shifted ever so slightly, Daniel’s little fingers would dip under the fabric in the back.

“There,” Daniel says, a self-satisfied grin lighting up his face. His normally bouncy hair is stuck down to his forehead with water, and this close, Max can see every sun-borne freckle on his face, every speck in his eyes.

Max has no reason to try to dunk him—no reason that he’d admit, anyway—but he does.

“Hey!” Daniel shouts, and then it’s _on._

They’d gone swimming a couple of times over Max’s stay so far, but they had all been lazy afternoon floats, nothing like the play-fighting they’re doing now. For how tired they both were, they end up circling around and trying to dunk each other for the better part of half an hour, until Max finally calls it quits and turns over to float on his back.

Daniel pulls himself up out of the water and sits with his feet dangling in. Max’s buzz is almost completely gone, which normally kills his mood like nothing else, but he feels strangely alright. He swims over to where Daniel is, not getting out of the water but paddling next to his legs.

“Hey,” Daniel says more seriously, and Max meets his gaze. He must be coming down from it by now, too. “Sorry, if that was too much.” Daniel nods across the pool to where he'd initially tackled him in.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Max says. “It was fun.”

Daniel smiles. It’s not that Max had gone about categorizing Daniel’s smiles, but the one on his face now is one of Max’s favorites. It’s small, smaller by far than the trademark grin he sports most often, but it’s infinitely more genuine. And, Max has found over the years, it’s reserved only for a few select people.

“I’m glad,” Daniel says. “I’m really glad that you’re having a good time.”

“And you? You’re having a good time?” Max asks. 

“Of course,” Daniel says. He tips his head back to look up at the sky for a second and then looks back down at Max. “It’s late, though. We should get to bed.”

Max raises his eyebrows. “Does it matter?” He’s tired, but—he doesn’t want this moment to end.

“Actually, yes,” Daniel says. He pulls his legs out of the water. “I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”

Max’s eyes widen. “What is it?” As far as Max had known, Daniel didn’t have anything else planned until they watched the free practices on Friday.

“It’s a surprise!” Daniel says. “I would’ve told you earlier, but I only found out today that it was all going to work out. I know you hate surprises, but you’ll love it, seriously. Trust me.”

It goes against Max’s every instinct. He’s always hated surprises, since he was a kid, and the only thing worse than an actual surprise is a _surprise_ , one where you know something is coming but you don’t know what. Thanks, Daniel.

But at the same time— _trust me_ , Daniel had said. And he does, undeniably.

“Okay,” Max says, and relief flashes over Daniel’s face. “Tomorrow, then.”

Max gets out of the pool and collects his shirt, and they walk back to the house together. They get ready for bed at the same time, Max in the bathroom downstairs and Daniel in his, and all in all it’s almost sickeningly domestic, just like the rest of this day has been. The grocery shopping, the barbecuing, the cleaning up—let alone everything to do with the pool.

As much as Max trusts Daniel, he really does hate surprises. He can’t help but lie awake for a bit thinking about it, even though he knows nothing bad will happen—theoretically. Thankfully, he’s exhausted enough both physically and mentally that sleep comes quicker than it usually does on lonely nights.

—

Max wakes up slowly.

After Daniel herding them off to bed the previous night, he would have expected Daniel to wake him up early to go, wherever they’re going, but he hadn’t. When Max pads downstairs, Daniel is awake and dressed but doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. He offers to cook brunch while Max showers, and Max isn’t sure how to feel about any of it.

Last night. Max is distantly nervous about what Daniel has planned, but his mind is too caught on the pool to really think about it. He and Daniel have always been physical, mostly because of Daniel, but Max can’t help but wonder if there’s something more there. Daniel’s hands on his waist, taking off his shirt… He has to force himself to stop thinking about it before he really has a problem.

He’d never allowed himself to seriously consider it, before. His crush on Daniel was severe but also impossible, the knowledge of which is just about the only reason he survived being teammates with him in the first place. To consider it, not only as a possibility but as something Daniel himself might want to happen, is strange and a little unsettling, despite how desperate he is for it to be true.

Soon enough, they’re on their way. Daniel had told him ahead of time that it’ll be a long drive, which had done nothing to help Max’s nerves, but being in the car with Daniel is relaxing enough. They have the windows rolled down, crisp autumn air streaming in while Max taps along to Daniel’s music. 

“We’re close,” Daniel says eventually. “I would tell you to shut your eyes, but I think you’d slap me.”

“You know me so well,” Max says, adjusting his sunglasses absently. “I can slap you anyway, if you want.”

“Oh Maxie, not in public,” Daniel teases. 

“We’re not in public, we’re in your car,” Max says. “But good to know _that’s_ the kind of shit you’re into.”

“Sounds more like you’re into it to me,” Daniel says with a laugh. “I could’ve been talking about anything—I could’ve been saving you from a potential exposé about you attacking me unprovoked. You’re the one who immediately went to kinky.”

“Because I already know your mind is in the gutter!”

“Yeah, nah, if my mind’s in the gutter yours is too. But look,” Daniel says, turning Max’s attention back out the window, “there she is.”

Max goes a little breathless. Daniel is way too good at getting that reaction out of him.

“Karting?” Max asks, incredulous. “We’re going karting?”

Daniel glances over to Max before focusing on the road again. “Yup," he says. "Beautiful idea, isn’t it?”

“Fucking obviously,” Max says, practically vibrating in his seat.

“And the best part is, we’ll be alone. No need to worry about knocking out some kid trying to overtake,” Daniel says. “They aren’t usually open today, but I swung it. This is where I started in karts, so they love me—and I also may have promised a few of your autographs.”

“Fine by me,” Max says. “Shit, I never would’ve guessed this. I didn’t even know you could _do_ this.” Max is vaguely ashamed once again by his own unfamiliarity with Daniel; he’d assumed, apparently wrongfully, that racing in any sense was totally out of the picture for him now.

“Good surprise, yeah?” Daniel says, cheeky and proud. “You can go ahead and bow down to my excellence now.”

“We’ll see who’s bowing down when I lap you,” Max says, playfully serious.

Daniel grins. “Cute, that you think you’ll even be able to overtake me.”

Daniel parks them close to the doors, and Max can’t help the near hop in his step as they walk to the entrance. The owner greets them when they get inside, and it’s immediately clear that he does love Daniel—although that’s no surprise, considering most people do. He knows who Max is, too, which is also to be expected, and Max dutifully offers to sign some hats which he looks equally excited for. 

Soon enough, he and Daniel are decked out in ill-fitting race suits and lining up on the grid. It doesn’t feel anything like Formula 1, of course, but the idea of it—of racing again, of racing _Daniel_ again—makes Max so giddy it’s verging on embarrassing. The owner quickly goes over the safety information and teaches them how to work the lights; apparently they really will be left alone for the most part. 

Max’s mind isn’t quite empty, not like it is waiting for the lights to go out in an actual race, but the cool adrenaline still washes over him all the same as they watch the lights. He’s hyper aware of both the lights and Daniel next to him, and as they tick on one-by-one, he loses himself in the rhythm. 

Lights out.

Max can’t help the laugh that bubbles out as soon as they make it around the first turn. He and Daniel are neck and neck, and Max is racing for a win but he’s also overwhelmed by how much he missed this. Racing Daniel brings him right back to battling him on the actual grid, to the deliberate unpredictability of Daniel’s moves and the brilliance of his racing. It brings him back to their days at Red Bull, to having a teammate that challenged him in every way, and then to fighting him in his McLaren, a known entity surrounded by unknowns.

Max is finally able to make an overtake stick about three quarters through the race, and after that he holds onto the lead and brings it home. He wants to do a victory lap to rub it in, but that would give Daniel too long to compose himself. 

They stop around where they lined up, and Max pulls off his helmet, exposing his sweaty face to the cool autumn air. He knows he must look awful, helmet hair and all, but it feels great. 

“And you thought I wouldn’t be able to overtake,” Max says, giggling. “Where’s my podium?”

Daniel has taken off his own helmet, curls stuck down around his forehead. Max wouldn’t have expected him to be angry—they’re both incredibly competitive, especially with each other, but not that much—although he might’ve expected some teasing bitterness. Instead, Daniel just looks warm, in the temperature way and in the way his eyes light up looking at Max.

“If you’re getting a podium, I’d be on it too, considering I was second and all,” Daniel says, gesturing at the empty track behind them.

“That doesn’t sound too bad, as long as there’s no shoey,” Max says. Podiums with Daniel were always special, shoeys aside. “But who would be third?”

“Lando, if he were here,” Daniel says. “He’d kill us both if we said anyone else.”

Max chuckles. “I still can’t believe you’re scared of him. He was your teammate for three years, and he was a baby!”

“Baby this, baby that, I’m still convinced it was just a front,” Daniel says. “Nobody likes milk that much who isn’t some kind of fucked. He’s too young and hip, it freaks me out.”

“He’s only two years younger than me,” Max says. “The both of you seem to forget that. Are you freaked out by me too?”

Daniel groans. “Don’t remind me, you’re a baby too. Just in a different, less scary way.”

“I _was_ a baby, I’m not anymore,” Max says. “And I’m way scarier than Lando!”

“You’ll always be my baby,” Daniel says, and Max flushes despite the fact that Daniel is most definitely joking. “And not in any way scary. Now—rematch?”

They do several short races, alternating wins as the sun slowly sets. Daniel also forces Max to help him set up his phone to catch a video of them driving by, which Max pretends to be annoyed by, but he knows he’ll ask for the video later. They push it as long as they can, neither wanting to bring the karts back just yet, until they’re about five minutes away from total darkness. Max finds himself wishing he’d come a couple of months ago, when the summer days would’ve let them keep going for another hour or more, but he’s content. They’d been slowing down out of exhaustion anyway.

They thank the owner, who thanks them for coming, which—Max supposes that’s the epitome of being famous, someone thanking you for allowing them to go out of their way. By the time they’re back in the car, Max’s adrenaline has gone down a little, but he feels no less excited than he has the entire afternoon.

“You look about ready to melt into the floorboard,” Daniel says. Max is sprawled a bit in his seat, arm hanging out the window despite his latent fear of Australian bugs.

“So do you,” Max says, tilting his sunglasses to look at Daniel. They’re both sweaty messes by this point, hair long past redeemable, but Max wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Sure, but I’m not the Formula 1 driver here,” Daniel says. “You’re supposed to be in perfect shape.”

“My shape is perfect, fuck you,” Max says and revels in Daniel’s laughter. “But I’m not a Formula 1 driver right now any more than you are. We could both go back to karts at this rate.”

“Yeah, nah, I don’t know that any karting championship would let us in with our history,” Daniel says with a laugh. “I probably couldn’t, anyway, I can’t go very often without aggravating my leg. I’m gonna be feeling this tomorrow as it is.”

Max frowns. “You overdid it?”

“Maybe a little,” Daniel says. “But I wanted to, so… risk-reward, or something.”

“That sucks,” he says, awkward but without any other ideas. It’s hard to swallow, for multiple reasons—living it would be worse.

Daniel glances over at him. “Bit of a downer I guess, but it is what it is,” he says. “Now that we sweated our balls off, though, we can blow our diets.”

“Not much to blow for you when your diet is mainly burgers already,” Max says, guiltily grateful for the topic change. 

“Not much to blow? Is that what your last boyfriend said, too?” Daniel asks.

“Oh, fuck off!” Max exclaims, but as with every play-insult from Daniel, he can’t help the laugh that comes along with it.

—

Daniel takes them to a gelato shop in Perth proper, and it’s busy despite it only being a Wednesday night. The line is long but moving quick, so the larger problem comes from the severely limited amount of tables. Luckily, just after they walk in, one opens up.

“I’ll order, and you go grab that table, yeah?” Daniel says, and they break. 

Max slides into one of the seats, trying to look as innocent as possible as he silently gloats at the pair of teenagers side-eyeing him for it. He pulls out his phone idly, hoping that Daniel comes back soon; he may be used to bustle thanks to his job, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it.

“Here we are,” Daniel says, taking the seat across from Max and setting down two gelatos. One is chocolate chip, clearly for Daniel, and the other for Max—one scoop vanilla, one scoop strawberry.

“You remember?” Max asks, slightly awestruck. He’d expected Daniel to come back and save their table while Max ordered for himself.

Daniel laughs. “I mean, we knew each other for years, and you never ordered anything else. You’re a strawberry fiend, it’s disgusting.”

“It’s not disgusting, you’re just too picky! Besides, what if I wanted to order something else today?” Max asks.

Daniel raises his eyebrows. “Bold of you to call me picky when we both know you would _never_ have ordered anything else.”

“Because it’s good!” Max defends, and the conversation flows from there. 

Max is still in disbelief at how easily he and Daniel clicked back together. They have yet to run out of things to catch up on—three and a half years of stories don’t get told in a week, after all—but equally they’re back to their old selves, joking about nothing just like they did on their hike. Even when things turn more serious, Max finds himself more willing to open up than he ever is with anyone else.

Somehow, they get on the topic of kids in the paddock, which Max supposes should’ve made it unsurprising that Daniel would ask him if he wanted kids himself.

“I haven’t thought about it much, really,” Max says. “I’ve never been with anyone long enough to have that type of conversation.”

“Enjoying the bachelor life too much, huh?” Daniel says.

Max laughs. “Yeah, plus I’d be an awful parent, most likely—nobody needs to deal with that.”

“Aww, but you’re great with kids!” Daniel says. “Well, not great, but not awful by a stretch.”

“Maybe a good babysitter,” Max says. “I have no idea how to parent. I’d probably fuck them up if I was in charge of their whole lives.” Max can barely keep track of himself half the time. 

“You learn as you go! Nobody really knows how,” Daniel says. “Except Seb maybe, but even he probably had his moments.”

“Spoken like a true parent,” Max says, chuckling. “Do you have a secret kid I don’t know about?”

“Not that I know of,” Daniel says. “But I’ve thought about it.”

“You’d be great,” Max says, probably a bit too earnest, but it’s true. He can’t imagine someone better than Daniel.

“Well, if I find the right person, maybe I’ll try it out. ” Daniel says, smiling in a way that makes Max’s skin prickle. “For now, though, I’ve been thinking about getting a dog.”

They talk about dogs, then cats, then chameleons, but even the way Daniel’s knees occasionally brush his under the table isn’t enough to shake their earlier conversation out of his mind. As Max drives them back to the farm, his mind wanders back to it in between Daniel’s directions, and by the time he’s in bed that night he’s fully imagining it. 

Daniel on the farm, playing with a kid or three with mops of unruly curls, taking them to races, buying them gelato and going on hikes. All with the right person. 

And the right person, in Max's daydreams and apparently in Daniel's opinion, is _him_. 

Max isn’t stupid, and neither is Daniel, this is—they’re building. Something is going to give soon, and Max is desperate for it to happen, but he’s also unwilling to force it. This whole trip is more than he ever expected, more than he could ever have reasonably hoped for, and the idea of never letting go is almost enough to rival the rush he gets from racing. He’s excited, nearly dizzy with it, but at the same time...

He’s terrified. 

Max doesn’t do commitment. He never has. The fact that Daniel makes him want to is something he can’t even begin to process, but that’s not even the biggest problem. Everything feels good, now, but no matter how much they’ve joked and flirted, most things important are still unspoken. 

He and Daniel had been close, but never like this. Assuming they can get over any initial roadblocks, it would be good, for a time. But what happens when Daniel sees the core of Max’s personality, sees everything about him that he tries to keep hidden? What happens when the restlessness comes back, and Max doesn’t know how to deal with it? What happens if Max runs away again?

What happens if Daniel runs away before Max even has the chance?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOURE ALL WELCOME FOR SUMMONING HIKING VLOG DANIEL HOLY FUCK /jk but him talking about alexisonfire and posting a hiking vlog immediately after the pub of my fic w the exact same things.. *thinks*
> 
> jokes aside thanks so much for reading!! trying to cut down my notes, but i can't resist letting yall know that those fave gelato flavors are not made up!!! Also pls forgive max, stracciatella is not the same as choco chip but he doesn’t remember lol. i just think it’s stupidly funny and cute that max always orders the same gelato and specifically prefers the vanilla scoop to be on the bottom when he does.
> 
> anyway thanks again!! kd/comment appreciated :’)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where things get heavier, so fair warning to mind the tags and if you need any more specific info feel free to comment before reading!

For how worried Max is going to bed, the next few days are essentially perfect. Daniel needs to rest and take it easy, so they don’t do much beyond laying around the house playing FIFA and watching TV, but it’s good. When Friday comes, they watch the free practices and talk shit about the teams, and it’s good, too. Max feels more at home here than he has anywhere else in a long time. He’s comfortable.

Which should’ve been a bad sign, he supposes.

Saturday had started out normal. They’d watched the free practice and qualifying and gone out on one of Daniel’s buggies for a bit, but other than that the day passed as syrupy as all the previous. By the time they’d gone to bed, it was late enough where Max expected to fall asleep quickly.

He doesn’t; it isn’t unusual to be kept awake these days, but it is still annoying. He tosses and turns for a while, considers getting up for some water, except—

There’s a crash from the other room.

Max’s blood runs cold. What the fuck was that? Surely it was Daniel, but what noise would Daniel be making in the middle of the night? And why wouldn’t he have shouted over that he was alright, whatever it was?

Max has an awful feeling, but he slowly gets out of bed and walks into the hall. Daniel’s door is open a sliver, and he knocks on it, but there’s no answer. He pushes the door the rest of the way open, trying to get a view of whatever is going on, and the first thing he sees is Daniel’s alarm clock on the floor opposite his bed. 

Max glances over to the side table. The lights are off, but there’s enough ambient light coming in from the hallway that the glow makes most of the room visible. Daniel’s phone and an empty glass are both on the ground as well—he must’ve swiped them off. When Max finally lets himself look at Daniel, he almost wishes he hadn’t.

Daniel is quiet and still, but he’s clearly having a nightmare from the twisted expression on his face. He’s kicked off the covers, but he’s sweating anyway, and Max feels himself sweat as he considers his options. He should go—he’s pretty sure he read once not to wake people from nightmares, and Daniel hadn’t asked for his help or even mentioned the possibility of anything like this happening. But at the same time, it’s Daniel—how can he just leave him like this?

Max must stand there for five minutes, and he’d feel like a creep if he wasn’t so distracted. Just as he’s made up his mind to go, though, Daniel gasps and his eyes shoot open.

“Fuck! Fuck, holy shit,” Daniel says, quiet but no less panicky than he looks. He sits up and sees the clock, and then turns his attention to the side table. “Christ, I—oh,” he says, eyes going wide when he finally sees Max standing in the doorway.

Max flushes; he’s basically been caught staring, after all, probably at something Daniel hadn’t wanted him to see.

“Did I wake you up? Fuck, I’m sorry,” Daniel says. “They don’t happen so often anymore, especially not like this,” he adds, gesturing at the clock on the ground.

“It’s fine, I was already awake. Sorry, I...” Max trails off. “I wasn’t sure if you were in trouble, or something, so I came over.”

Daniel swallows, expression indecipherable. “Right. Yeah, that makes sense.”

Max shifts back and forward on his feet. “Do you want to, like, talk about it? Or, I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Daniel chuckles, but it’s nothing like it normally is. 

Neither of them say anything. Max should excuse himself, should go back to bed and let Daniel deal with this however he normally does, but he can’t. Not when Daniel’s response, indecisive as it was, hadn’t been _no_.

“There’s your other helmet,” Daniel says finally. He nods up at a shelf across from his bed, and sure enough, Max’s helmet is sitting up there along with one of Daniel’s own and a few others. “Since you were looking for it, the other day.”

“I’m glad you still have it,” Max says, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Of course,” Daniel says. “That was—those are the important ones.”

Max realizes distantly that this is his last chance to leave this conversation. He should, he obviously should, Daniel doesn’t need him. Daniel hasn’t needed him in a long time, and if Max is honest, he probably never did—at least not in the way Max needed Daniel. 

But if there’s anything Max has realized in the past few years, it’s that being needed and being wanted are not the same thing.

“Tell me about them?” Max asks. 

Daniel isn’t smiling, but he doesn’t look mad. He’s looking at Max in the same calculating way he has been this entire trip, but mostly he just looks tired. 

“Yeah, c’mere,” Daniel says softly. 

Max crosses the room and sits on the side of the bed next to Daniel. Maybe he would feel awkward, getting into Daniel’s bed half-naked with Daniel similarly undressed, but in the face of everything else it feels unimportant.

“Left two are Lewis and Seb, from their last season,” Daniel says. “It was funny, they both asked me to do it at the same race coincidentally—very like them. The furthest right is Lando, end of ‘21 because I made such a good first year impression. And then there’s yours.”

Max nods. The last time they swapped helmets had also been 2021, and it’s the one Daniel is keeping here. It had been the race before the championship was decided—Daniel was out of the running already and said it would bring good luck. Granted, if there had been any luck involved, it had worked.

“And yours?” Max asks, although he has a feeling he knows the answer.

“From my last race.” Daniel pauses. “Reckoned that’s a pretty important one.”

If Max closes his eyes, he can still see everything nearly on photo replay in his mind. He can feel the way his stomach had dropped when he’d seen Daniel go off, the way it had dropped even further when he’d driven by on the next lap and Daniel still hadn’t gotten out. The chaotic mess of feelings he’d had to push down when all his engineer had been able to tell him was to keep his head down while they figured out what was going on. 

“Is it not… difficult, to see it there all the time?”

“It used to be.” Daniel pauses. He’s looking at the helmet, gaze somewhere else entirely, probably unfeeling of Max’s eyes on him. “But that’s why I did it, I guess. You can’t run away from something like that without it taking over your life.”

Daniel makes eye contact with Max. Max isn’t sure what expression he has on his own face—he can’t even figure out what he’s feeling, exactly. Daniel still looks tired. 

“It still stings, if I think about any of it too hard—I don’t think that’ll ever go away. But it used to be so much worse, when—I mean, every step would be a reminder of what happened, and that’s assuming it wasn’t already on my mind in the first place. Obviously I didn’t want to just stop walking because of that, so I decided to go the other way and throw myself straight in the deep end.” Daniel chuckles, and Max’s heart aches with it. “The helmet is part of that. And—fuck—my phone background used to be a picture of the crash. It was morbid.”

“Jesus, Daniel,” Max whispers. 

“It worked,” Daniel says. “It was probably unhealthy as fuck, but it worked. I would’ve gotten used to it eventually anyway, that’s just how life works, but I don’t regret doing it like that. And now I can appreciate my sick-ass helmet for its aesthetics again.”

“And the nightmare?” Max broaches carefully. “Was that…?”

“Sort of,” Daniel says. “I’ve always gotten nightmares, and I’ve always gotten crash ones, especially after 2014. They got worse after my crash, but they’re pretty rare, these days—I think everything going on lately just brought it back to the surface.”

“Oh,” Max says. “Like, going karting and stuff?”

“Yeah, exactly. And don’t even _think_ about apologizing for that, because I know you would, you asshole,” Daniel says. “It was my choice, and it’s like I said—I don’t want to run away from it. It sucks, yeah, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I’m good.”

“I wasn’t—” Max starts, but he probably would have. He’s not in the habit of being overly apologetic, but with Daniel and with this, that switch inside him is inexplicably flipped. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I should probably let you get back to sleep after barging in here like this.”

“Wait,” Daniel says, grabbing Max by the wrist as he moves to get off the bed. “Stay.” It should be phrased as a question, but it isn’t. 

Max stays.

— 

Max wakes up to Daniel’s arm slung over his waist, but other than that, they’d stayed mostly separate throughout the night. He’s surprised he woke up before Daniel in the first place, but he supposes that Daniel did have a more draining night compared to him.

Max lets himself look for a minute longer than is probably acceptable. Daniel is facing him, and if Max inched a bit closer, he’d be able to feel Daniel’s even breaths on his skin. Max has always found Daniel attractive, and it’s as undeniable now as it ever was, older or not. Daniel thoroughly embodies the concept of aging well, and his features are no less defined in his sleep; Max should probably get up before he has a problem that, while excusable thanks to the time of day, would be completely mortifying. 

It’s awful but distantly funny how much being around Daniel has taken Max back to how he was as a teenager. He’ll laugh about it later, maybe, when it doesn’t feel so insurmountable. 

Max carefully slides Daniel’s arm off of him and gets out of bed. It’s not like the movies, where the leads wake up at the same time coincidentally, although Max almost wishes it was. He pads back to his own room to collect a new outfit before he showers, and he considers showering in Daniel’s, but in the end he’s too chicken to follow through with it. 

By the time he finishes, Daniel is leaning against the counter in the kitchen, sleepily brewing coffee. 

“Morning,” Max says, sliding onto one of the stools at the kitchen island.

“You weren’t in bed when I woke up,” Daniel says with what can only be classified as a pout. 

Max chuckles. “Well, yeah, and it looks like you left half your brain there. I’m just now realizing I haven’t seen you pre-caffeine yet.”

“Get used to it, if you’re going to keep getting up before me,” Daniel says, breaking off into a yawn. “Now, what d’you want for breakfast? We’re gonna need to restock before you leave.” The comment sends two waves of equal-opposite emotion over Max: warmth, at the domesticity of it, and something much colder at the reminder that his days in Perth are numbered.

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Max says in lieu of voicing either of those. He slides off the stool to look in the fridge, and sure enough, it’s mostly empty. “I could make eggs?”

Daniel is silent for a beat, and when Max turns back to him, he looks comically surprised. “Who are you and what have you done with my Maxie?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Max says, ignoring the jolt that runs through him at Daniel’s words. “I’ve made eggs for you, like, six times. I made eggs for you _last week."_

“I know,” Daniel replies, sleepy but still unbearably cheeky. “I just like making fun of you.”

“Idiot,” Max gripes, but he’s smiling. “Sit down already, I’ll finish your coffee too. You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“It’ll take a lot more than a long night to take me out,” Daniel says. “But I won’t say no to a little diner service. You gonna put on the apron?”

Max does not, in fact, put on the apron. He gets the eggs on and chops up the only two peppers in the fridge to go in them, and after that, they really are basically out of food—at least out of everything healthy. All in all it’s overwhelmingly peaceful; Max is mostly quiet, Daniel chirping at him occasionally as golden sunlight streams in through the windows. He doesn’t burn the eggs.

Daniel practically moans after his first bite, and Max rolls his eyes.

“They’re just eggs,” Max says.

“ _Just eggs,”_ Daniel mocks. “You only say that because you’re so spoiled, people cooking for you and getting takeaway all the time. Everything tastes better when someone else makes it, but that’s all you ever eat.”

“These taste the same to me,” Max says. “But I’m learning, anyway. I can make more than just eggs now.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Pasta,” Max answers succinctly, and they both burst out laughing. Seeing Daniel asleep had been new and exciting in its way, but Max is almost certain that no new side Daniel shows him will ever be more beautiful than this: Daniel sleepy but beaming in the sunlight, curls messy and eyes bright, hands gesturing wildly because that’s the silent half of how he communicates.

It’s so easy, living like this. Max knows his days in Perth are numbered in theory, but the idea of ever boarding that plane, of this life ever ending, is enough to make his heart clench uncomfortably in his chest.

—

The rest of the day and the next pass nearly like a dream. They do all the things they’ve been doing, but everything feels so different. Throughout it all, Max is acutely aware that something between them had shifted the morning when Max woke up in Daniel’s bed, and it sends butterflies fluttering in his stomach whenever he thinks of it.

Unfortunately, he is also acutely aware that he’ll be leaving in less than a week.

His flight goes out early Friday morning, so they plan to stay in on Thursday and leave the last of their adventuring for Wednesday. Daniel considers it a crime that Max has never been properly stargazing, and so on Tuesday they plan out their last trip to another of Daniel’s favorite spots. It’s a bit of a hike, but nothing compared to the first hike they went on—after all, getting lost in the dark would be an awful end to an otherwise excellent trip.

By dinnertime, Max is already anticipating the next day too much to think about anything else. It’s annoying, but Max has never been able to keep his mind off the future other than during race weekends. Still, he supposes it’s better to be anticipating their trip rather than the other option—his flight back to Monaco.

Max’s phone rings just as they finish washing up from dinner. He hadn’t been expecting anyone, but now that he thinks about it, he hasn’t talked to anyone on the phone in a few days—it’s probably his sister or Lando.

“Can you grab that for me?” Max asks, still washing the soap off his hands. His phone is sitting on the kitchen island, and Daniel is closer—he doesn’t want it to ring out before he sees who it is.

“Of course, Maxie, I’ll—” Daniel cuts himself off.

Max dries his hands on the towel. “What? Who is it?”

Daniel doesn’t answer, and when Max turns around, he’s fixing Max with an odd look. “Does your dad still call you a lot?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically small.

“It’s my dad?” Max asks, slightly stunned. “Give me that.”

“Does he?” Daniel asks, making no move to hand over Max’s phone.

“What the fuck? Yes, now give me that before it stops ringing,” Max says. 

Daniel mechanically hands him the phone. “I’ll just go upstairs,” he says, although Max barely hears it, already fully focused on answering.

“Hey, papa, what’s—”

Jos interrupts him, voice cold. “Why are you in Australia?” 

Max probably looks stupid, standing with his mouth open, but he genuinely doesn’t know what to say. Of all the reasons for his dad to be calling, Max would never have expected it to be about this.

“And don’t try to deny it, any chance of that went out the window as soon as Daniel fucking Ricciardo posted about it on instagram.”

“Daniel posted about it?” Max asks. He’s trying to keep track of the conversation, but it’s like his mind is floating away from him. He hadn’t known Daniel had posted anything. When did he do that?

“I’m surprised you didn’t know, seeing as he’s got you wrapped around his finger already,” Jos says. “What the hell are you doing?”

“He just invited me to get out of Monaco for a bit,” Max says, more defensively than he probably should. “What does it matter?”

“What does it matter?” Jos repeats. “Ricciardo is a threat, always was, always will be. Let alone the fact you’re distracted enough without him there pushing you along.”

“I hardly see how he’s a threat when he’s not even in F1 anymore,” Max says. He doesn’t want to fight—especially not now, not here, when he has limited time with Daniel—but this is complete bullshit.

“Oh? So you think he’s not even the slightest bit jealous that you _are_ still in F1? That you achieved what he never could? You don’t think he might want to get back at you for that? I don’t remember raising you to be this naïve.”

“Well, I’m not even in F1 right now, so there’s that out of the way,” Max says. “Daniel’s not—he isn’t like that. _You’re_ the one who’s always had it out for him!”

“Because he’s a bad influence on you!” Jos says. He’s not yelling, but it’s a near thing. “I can see it in him, Max. There’s a plane to Monaco tomorrow, and you had better be on it—you’ll regret this later if you aren’t, whether you realize that now or not.”

Max closes his eyes, leaning back against the counter. “I’m not leaving.”

“Max.”

“No!” Max says. “Daniel isn’t a threat, and I’m a grown fucking man anyway. I’m not going to leave early just because you can’t stand him.”

“Good to know I’m the only one that cares about your career here,” Jos says. “Fucking typical.”

The line clicks dead.

Max sags against the counter. He supposes he should feel—something, either anxiety or relief, but he doesn’t. He feels numb. 

He walks out of the kitchen. He needs to do something with his hands, so he goes to boot up FIFA even though he doesn’t really feel like playing. It ought to help take his mind off things, but even once he starts a game, he doesn’t feel any better; getting his mind off things proves to be impossible when he can’t even really tell what he’s thinking about. He feels like he’s wading through sludge every time he tries to focus on it.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Max looks up to find Daniel standing next to him. He’s surprised, for a moment; despite all the contents of his earlier conversation, he’d almost forgotten Daniel was even here. Daniel is just looking at him, which is weird, but his mouth is moving and—oh.

“Max?” Daniel asks. 

“What?”

“Max, are you alright?” Daniel looks—Max can’t read his expression well enough to put it to thought.

“Yeah, what? Why are you standing there like that?”

“I came downstairs and you were just kind of… sitting here zoinked out. It was a little freaky,” Daniel says.

“Oh,” Max says. “I was just playing FIFA.”

“Yeah,” Daniel says, eyes flitting between Max and the FIFA loading screen. “Right.”

Max frowns. “Do you want to play?”

“If you still want to,” Daniel says. At Max’s nod, he sits down on the sofa next to Max and picks up the other controller.

As they play through a few matches, Max feels the fog in his mind start to dissipate. The clarity makes him aware of Daniel shooting him these glances every so often, which Max normally loves, but something about it puts him on edge tonight. He feels like a zoo animal on display.

They both get ready for bed, and Daniel is _still_ watching him. He’s not saying anything different, or acting any different apart from the watching, but Max can’t stand it. He has to pass Daniel in the hallway to get to his room, and he knows he should just leave it, should wait until he’s slept on it at least, but he can’t.

“The fuck is your problem?” Max asks. They’re standing outside Daniel’s room, and the surprise is obvious on Daniel’s face.

“What? I don’t have a problem,” Daniel says.

“You do,” Max argues. “You keep—looking at me.”

“Max, I always look at you. We’re the only two here—where else would I look?”

“Bullshit!” Max says. “It’s different than that, and you know it.”

Daniel doesn’t respond for a long moment, considering his words. “Okay, I guess I was, but I was just trying to make sure you’re alright.”

“Why?”

Daniel looks at him strangely, and Max hates it. “What do you mean, why? You were all, I don’t know, spacey on the couch.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself?” Max asks. He’s distantly aware that he’s escalating—he doesn’t want to, he couldn’t even really pinpoint why he is. He’s just doing it.

“I never said that,” Daniel says, defensive himself. “It’s fine to—I mean, it’s fine that you weren’t totally good after your call with your dad.”

“Why are you talking about my dad?” Max asks, and thinking more of it, “which, speaking of, why were you so weird when he called? What the fuck was that in the kitchen?”

Daniel isn’t gaping at him, but it’s something close. “I—What? I was just surprised, that he’d be ringing you out of nowhere. I didn’t… I just thought it would add to your stress, or whatever it is, and you definitely don’t need more of that right now.”

Max bristles. “I don’t need your fucking pity.”

“It’s not pity?” Daniel says. He looks vaguely pissed now, and also like Max has grown a second head. “Christ, is it so hard to believe that I just care about you?”

“If you cared about me you wouldn’t be—fucking—coddling me. Assuming shit about me I never said.”

“Max, what the fuck are you talking about? I never assumed anything!”

“You think you know so much about me, huh,” Max steamrolls forward. “Because I’m fucking—because I’m lonely, because I was awake one night in Monaco, because my dad called. Fuck you, you don’t even know me anymore!”

“Evidently not,” Daniel says. “But whose fault is that again?”

Max stops breathing for a second. He can’t—they can’t—

”So that’s what this is about,” he says instead, completely detached. 

“Are you kidding me Max?” Daniel asks.

“You’re still mad at me, yeah? Is that why you’re enjoying this so much?” Max goads.

“Believe you fucking me, I’m not enjoying this. You need to calm down.”

Max’s blood boils. “I do _not_ need to calm down! You’re just jealous because I’m still racing and you’re not! Because I got the title and you crashed out before you ever came close!”

Daniel’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head in disbelief. “Well, you’re not still racing, are you now? You couldn’t handle the fucking heat. And not that you’d know this considering you’re a fucking child, but not everything is about racing, you absolute cunt.” He pushes past Max and goes downstairs.

Max follows him down. “What are you doing?” he asks. Daniel walks to the door and slips on his shoes.

“I’m going for a drive. Go to bed.” Before Max can even process that, Daniel takes the keys and leaves.

Max stares at the door. After a while he sits down heavily on the bottom step, still unable to move from where he’d frozen at Daniel’s words.

What has he done?

— 

Max doesn’t know how long he sits on the step. He should go to bed, at least go lie down or something, but he can’t. He doesn’t know when Daniel will come back.

Eventually, his phone buzzes from his pocket.

**Daniel 01:20**

_I’m going to stay at Michael’s tonight, I think we both need a minute._

_I’ll be back in the morning._

_Will you be alright on your own for the night?_

Max’s thumbs hover over the keyboard, considering. He wants to say no, he wants Daniel to come back so he can—do whatever he’s going to do in response to their fight, but it wouldn’t be fair.

**Max 01:21**

_Yes_

**Daniel 01:21**

_Okay._

_If anything happens, call me or Michael._

**Daniel 01:23**

_See you tomorrow._

Max doesn’t respond. Instead, he gets up slowly and walks up the stairs, stopping for a moment outside Daniel’s door, just where they’d been standing not long ago. Everything is so fucked up now, and just like always, it’s Max’s fault.

It’s a breach of trust, that’s for sure. Daniel might be angry if he finds out. But in the end, Max can’t stop himself from pushing open Daniel’s door and going inside.

It looks the same as it had last time Max had been in here, when he woke up in Daniel’s bed. The same stylish color scheme, the same clock on the bedside table, the same pictures of Daniel’s family and friends. The same helmets. Max sees Daniel’s charger snaking out from behind the bedside table and wonders if Michael will have a spare.

The covers on the bed are half-made, wrinkled and folded over on Daniel’s side. Max slides in silently. The bed feels the same underneath him, but everything else feels so different.

He knows he should just go to bed, that this is bordering on masochistic, but he can’t help it. In the shuffle of everything going on, he’d forgotten about what had first tipped his dad off to Max being in Australia in the first place. He’s not surprised to have missed it—he hadn’t been on instagram nearly as much since leaving Monaco.

Max opens the app and goes to Daniel’s profile. Sure enough, the top post is new, posted just this morning.

The first slide is the video Daniel took of them karting, which Max only now realizes he forgot to ask for. He swipes, and it’s a picture of their gelatos from the same night. There’s a picture from the barbecue, a candid with everyone in it but Daniel. The last two are from their hike.

The first one isn’t a surprise—it’s the picture of the two of them, the entire valley behind them. The last one is a photo Max hadn’t even known Daniel had taken. It’s a picture of him, standing on one of the bridges, and Max remembers the moment now that he’s seen the picture. It’s just before he’d looked back to see Daniel unexpectedly on his phone.

The picture version of Max is undoubtedly happy. He’s looking out over the creek with a slight smile, nose scrunching a bit, eyes bright. The soft morning light makes everything so much more vivid and alive, and Max can practically feel the crisp air on his skin again, feels a very real pang in his chest as he remembers the bubbly feeling he’d had that entire hike.

The caption is simple, but Max can hardly read it with how blurry his vision is. He shuts down his phone and buries his face in Daniel’s pillow, and he falls asleep enveloped in the scent of brown sugar vanilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These grown men are both imbeciles when it comes to mental health. They’re learning. It’s okay. Sorta.
> 
> thanks as always for reading and all the comments! you guys are great. cookie if you can guess what you’ll be getting for the special chap tmr ;)


	5. interlude

The drive to the farm somehow feels both longer and shorter than it ever has.

Daniel has the windows rolled down, but other than the ambient morning noise from outside it’s mostly quiet. He almost never drives without music, but he can’t think of anything he’d want to listen to at the moment.

His mind is mostly quiet, too. It had been fucking racing last night, on the drive and while he was laying on Michael’s couch, but he’s exhausted just about every line of thought at this point. He’s still thinking about it, and he’s still worried, but it’s the calm within the storm if anything.

When he pulls up to the farm, the house is still standing, and nothing seems amiss. That’s one objective down. He hadn’t thought about the possible danger of leaving Max alone until he was already long out the door, but he hadn’t expected anything to happen, really, and so he rationalized it and squared it away. If anything did happen, Max would have called him, fight or not. He knows that much for certain.

Daniel opens the door, and the downstairs is still and quiet. He toes out of his shoes and sets down his keys, debating whether or not he should call out for Max. He’d probably want to know Daniel’s home as soon as possible so they could talk, but he’s also probably still asleep—and Daniel doesn’t want to talk just yet. He’ll wake Max up after he showers.

Daniel walks upstairs slowly. His leg feels as good as it ever does currently, but the stairs can be killer if he runs up them too quick. Daniel is never fully in control of how it feels on a given day, but he’s not going to take any unnecessary risks when he still assumes—or at least hopes—that he and Max are going to be hiking a bit tonight.

Daniel pushes open his door, and all the air in his body whooshes out of him at once.

He knew Max would probably still be asleep, but not asleep in _his bed._

The image is something he missed out on last time, and he’s sorely disappointed about that, especially now that he knows what it looks like. Max is laying on his side facing the door, all cuddled up in the blankets. His face is half-smushed into Daniel’s pillow, and Daniel might be concerned about his breathing if he couldn’t see the gentle rise and fall of his chest. The half of his face that is visible is soft with sleep, lips parted just slightly, and Daniel almost wants to forgive him and settle things immediately so he can crawl into bed and kiss him awake.

His heart aches with it, more than it had at any point last night, which is saying a lot. Instead of dwelling on it, he gets a fresh set of clothes and heads into the bathroom to shower. The sound of the water might wake Max up, and it’ll probably embarrass him, but that’s what he gets for sleeping in Daniel’s bed. 

Daniel looks at himself in the mirror and sighs. He tries to hype himself up mentally, but this is going to suck. No matter what happens, it’s going to suck, but if they want to end this trip in a good place it’s going to suck even more than Daniel can probably even fathom. And that would be the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario, which is also entirely possible, is that this will be the proverbial nail in the coffin on their relationship. The end of any chance of a _relationship_ , more than what they ever had before. If Daniel loses Max to this, after everything that’s happened, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. 

He turns on the shower, wondering if Max is awake yet—wondering if he’ll leave as soon as he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouchie :') hope you enjoyed! i don't usually do alternating pov, and this'll be the only daniel pov for this fic, but this just felt... right.


	6. Chapter 6

For a moment, Max doesn’t remember where he is.

He yawns and rolls onto his back, squinting at the sunlight coming in through the windows. The shower is running, so Daniel must be—

Max jolts awake.

Fuck, Daniel’s back. And he’s in the shower, in _his_ shower, which means he’s definitely seen Max in his bed already.

Max groans and throws an arm over his eyes. He’s glad he’s wearing a shirt, at least, because he’s probably flushing all the way down to his chest. He could go back to his own room or start his own shower, but there’s no use leaving now, when Daniel already caught him. He might as well enjoy it while he can.

Soon enough, the shower clicks off, and Max hears the bathroom door open. He scoots his arm up a little, peeking out from behind it. Daniel is dressed in sweats and a stupid sleeveless tee, towel around his shoulders to protect it from his still-wet curls. Max hates how hot he is and the fact that he knows Max slept in his bed last night, but most of all he hates the way his stomach roils with the anticipation of whatever Daniel is about to say. Daniel isn’t grinning, but he doesn’t look… mad. Max supposes that’s as good as he’s going to get.

“Do you want to go?” Daniel asks passively. 

Max squints. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “What?”

“Do you want to go back to Monaco early? There should be a flight out today, and I’ll drive you to the airport if that’s what you want.” 

“I…” Max flounders. Of course he doesn’t want to leave early, especially not without resolving the utter mess he’s created. “No. Do you want me to leave?”

“Okay, good,” Daniel says. “I don’t want you to leave either.”

There’s a beat where neither of them say anything. Max moves his arm up off of his eyes completely, letting Daniel read whatever he wants from his face as Max does the same. Daniel still doesn’t look mad; he doesn’t look emotive at all, really. He’s more appraising than anything, and Max feels it more sharply than he had at any point earlier in the trip. 

“We have a lot to talk about,” Daniel says at last. “But why don’t we just do today normal and talk tonight. Okay?”

“Okay, but—Daniel I—” Max would rather just get it all over with, but the ball is firmly in Daniel’s court; still, he can’t help but get this much out of the way. “You have to know that I’m sorry, about what I said last night. I didn’t mean it.” 

Daniel considers him. “I know,” he says, not unkindly. After a pause, he adds, “If you want to go shower, I’ll cook some breakfast and then we can chill out for a bit, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure, yeah,” Max says distantly, and with that Daniel leaves him once again alone in his room. 

That went—weird. It wasn’t bad, but he has no idea where they stand beyond cordial.

_I know,_ Daniel had said. Max’s stomach turns further. What does he do with that?

—

Max is on edge the rest of the day. After the last two weeks, it’s unsurprising how easy it is to slip back into normalcy with Daniel externally, but internally Max is a mess. They both avoid any mention of what happened last night, and if it’s as difficult for Daniel to ignore it as it is for Max, he doesn’t show it. The thought of the conversation ever occurring makes Max feel ill, but the idea of ignoring it forever is worse.

He and Daniel also come to an unspoken agreement that they’ll still go on the hike tonight and discuss it then. He helps Daniel pack the backpacks this time, just the essentials since it’s such a short hike, and Daniel teases him about being too baby to go camping in the bush. It feels good, but Max can’t focus on anything but the obvious no matter how hard he tries.

They head out just as the sun is setting. The drive is quiet for the most part, Daniel playing his normal music, which is both reassuring and scary because Max has no idea what it means for Daniel’s headspace. By the time they get to the mouth of the trail and get parked, it’s fully dark out. They grab the backpacks and start on their way, still mostly quiet, and Max feels like he’s going to explode with nerves.

Eventually, Daniel leads them off the trail, which he’d warned Max ahead of time would be happening. Trust is a difficult thing to earn from Max, but Daniel undoubtedly has it. If anything, Max trusts Daniel more than he trusts himself at the moment. 

Daniel brings them to something of a cliff. The trees clear away for a big slab of rock, mostly flat but with a smooth, semi-steep drop into the small valley below them. The drop is probably only a story or so high, but Daniel still tells him to be careful, and Max tries valiantly to ignore the wave of emotion that washes over him at that.

Daniel lays out the blanket he packed in his own bag and shows Max the best way to position his backpack to lay on. He points out different constellations and stars to Max, and Max tries to listen, but he’s too caught up in watching Daniel.

His face is lit up by the moon and the stars. He’s talking softly, moving through different parts of the sky, and Max wishes he could claim not to have any part in the bags under Daniel’s eyes. The memory of _his_ Daniel, and this Daniel, they’re closer to the same than they’ve ever been, but still they’re not quite a perfect match. There should never have been a break to begin with, but there was, and both he and Max have a few more wrinkles to show for it. 

Daniel is only a couple of years off forty, now. Max used to think forty was so old, used to think thirty was awfully old, too. When he was a teenager he’d thought he’d have everything figured out by thirty, that he’d have a wife and two kids and a world championship and be as happy as possible with it. Now he is thirty, and everything is so much better than he ever expected, but there are so many other problems he never could have predicted—and he still has no fucking clue what he’s doing.

And then there’s Daniel.

Daniel, who will probably never grow up, no matter how many smile lines form around his eyes. Daniel, who is maybe the only reason Max didn’t end up crashing and burning in his haste to prove himself when he was twenty. Daniel, who wanted to see him again, who invited him to his home to do it, who let Max sleep in his bed, despite everything. 

Daniel stops talking and meets Max’s gaze. He smiles, a little sadly, and Max can’t stop himself from leaning in. 

He doesn’t want Daniel to look sad ever again.

Daniel accepts him wordlessly, and then they’re kissing, and it feels exactly as heavy as the culmination of a decade that it is. They’re both gentle, barely anything heated about it, and Max has never felt anything as painfully bittersweet as this. He isn’t sure who pulls away first, but then they’re separated, Daniel’s hand still cupping his cheek as they breathe into each other’s space.

Max wants to qualify it, wants to ask if it was okay, but he doesn’t have to. He knows. 

“We have to talk,” Daniel says, quiet and obvious. Max knew that, too. 

And he’s terrified. Still. 

They sit up, cross-legged and facing forward to the sweep of the valley. Max appreciates it; he doesn’t know if he’d be able to get through this looking at Daniel the entire time. 

“I’m sorry,” Max says, again.

“I’m sorry, too,” Daniel says. 

Max frowns. “Why are you sorry? It was my fault. I shouldn’t have done—that.” He doesn’t know what to call it, other than being pointlessly mean and hurting Daniel, and he can't bring himself to say it.

“I shouldn’t have said some of the things I said, your fault or not,” Daniel says. “And if—if we’re going to do this,” he gestures between the two of them, “we have more to work through than just last night. We’ve both made mistakes over the years. I mean, jeepers. Well done Baku.”

Max can’t help the tiny laugh that bubbles out, but it sounds strangled even to his own ears. He can see Daniel glance at him briefly in his peripherals, but then he looks back out over the valley, same as Max. 

“If we’re going to do this,” Daniel repeats, and pauses. “Max. I don’t want to push you too hard, and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I need you to seriously think about getting help. Outside of me and your other friends, outside of yourself.”

It’s not that Max had been incredibly relaxed before, but he tenses up, probably noticeably. This is—he’d been expecting to apologize. He needs to, and he’s happy to, really. Not—whatever this is turning into.

“What are you saying?” Max asks, and he’s trying to keep cool, but he can already feel blood rushing to his head and his hands would probably be shaking if they weren’t planted firmly on his knees.

“You do this, when you get uncomfortable with a relationship. Like last night. As soon as things get past your comfort zone, you run—and if it isn’t convenient to run, like it was after I retired, you blow up and say things you don’t mean to get away from it.” Daniel says it matter-of-factly, like it’s as simple as the color of the sky or the time of day. Like it isn’t news to anyone except Max. 

“I don’t do that,” Max says. 

“You do, I think you know that you do. Unless you meant it last night?”

“No,” Max defends, instinctually.

“So why did you say all of that?” Daniel asks, and Max’s face burns even though he knows Daniel isn’t looking at him. He doesn’t have an answer, not one he can get to without thinking too much about anything else, and Daniel has some nerve asking for that right now.

“Max—” 

“I’m not crazy!” Max says, finally, because who the hell does Daniel think he is, get help? What the fuck?

“I didn’t say you were,” Daniel says. “You’re not. You’re having a hard time, you’ve been hurt before. You’re not crazy.”

Max can barely—he can’t even think right now, but his mind is caught up in the middle of that. “What’s that supposed to mean,” he says, not as a question but a demand, not clarifying what he’s referring to but knowing that Daniel understands anyway. He has a feeling he knows exactly how Daniel is going to respond, too, and he doesn’t like it.

Daniel doesn’t respond for a long moment. “I know you loved karting and racing, but you didn’t have the easiest childhood.” Of course. Of fucking course. “It’s okay to—”

“You—” Max starts, and he turns to Daniel now, eyes cold. “How dare you even _imply—_ ”

“Max, stop,” Daniel says, but Max barely hears it.

“I wasn’t abused! I don’t know what you have against my dad, what you think you know about my family, and I really don’t fucking know why you would feel like it’s your place to say anything about—”

“Max, I didn’t say that,” Daniel interrupts him. “I didn’t say anything like that. _You_ did.”

“But you were thinking it,” Max says, and they both go quiet.

Max isn’t stupid. He’s obviously questioned the way he was raised. This isn’t even the first time someone has tried to talk to him about it personally, and any time his dad comes up—anywhere, really—he sees the comments. People assuming things about his childhood, about his family, about his life—it really pissed him off, especially when he was young and unused to it. 

Because they’re _wrong_. His dad had only done what needed to be done so Max could be the best, and it worked. People always talk about his natural talent, but it wouldn’t have been enough to get him to the top level, to push him from good to generational talent. To get to his level, you have to work harder for it than anyone else, and that’s exactly what he’d done. What his dad has helped him to do.

They’re wrong. They have to be wrong, because the alternative is… The alternative makes him question why he never played football with the others between races at karting meets; why he spent so much time without his mum and sister, even when he didn’t strictly need to; why his father would go for weeks at a time without speaking to him, for no other reason than a subpar result. If it wasn’t all in worthy pursuit of his future championships, why did any of it happen?

And what had Max done so wrong to deserve it?

Daniel must sense—whatever, something, because he sighs.

“Maxie,” he says, and it’s like a punch to the gut. “Can I hold your hand?”

They hold hands, and it almost feels more intimate than the kiss had. Max slowly slides back into himself; the hand helps, whether Daniel did it for his sake or not. Max hadn’t even noticed he’d been zoning again—it’s like a haze just comes over him sometimes, and he can’t even tell until afterward. He flushes, inadvertently squeezing Daniel’s hand in his own. That’s surely what Daniel noticed, what prompted him to ask. 

Maybe Max is crazy after all.

“Fucking hell, this is going wrong in every way possible,” Daniel says.

“Yeah,” Max agrees, quiet. This was supposed to be the make-up, the movie moment where all is forgiven and everything feels good, but Max just feels like shit. Daniel probably does too.

“Just—put all of the past aside,” Daniel says after a pause. “Right now it seems obvious, at least to me, that it’s not as easy adjusting to life without racing as you expected. That may seem minor, but people reach out for all sorts of reasons. I think it would really help you work through everything, whether you decide to get back to racing one day or not.”

Max doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t know what to say. 

“All the fucking—I read a bunch of shitty articles about this, and they all said to keep it focused on you, or whatever, but fuck it. I had to go to therapy after the crash—physical, but mental, too, and I still do. I was depressed, even after I could walk fairly normally again I hardly wanted to. It took a long time for me to accept what happened, even with everything I did to try and fix it, and the bad days still come. But I know if I just bottled everything up I would still be exactly where I was four years ago.

“It’s different, I know it’s different for you, but still. I know it can work, and I think it could help you if you let it. Wherever it would end up leading you—to figure out why you wanted to leave, if you want to go back, if you want to do something else, whatever—I think it would help. And if you try and it doesn’t do anything for you, there’s no shame in that. At least you’ll have tried.”

Max keeps his eyes focused pointedly on the ground. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he says, because at least that’s one thing he knows how he feels about. “Back then. I’m sorry.” 

After all, that’s why they’re here now in the first place, why any of this had to happen to get them back together. Maybe it’s not the point of Daniel confiding in him, but they’re going to have to finally talk about it at some point, and Max can’t stand the waiting anymore. 

“I’m not going to lie and say it’s fine, Max, it was awful,” Daniel says. “Everything was shit already, and you just… disappeared. Like I meant nothing to you.” Max’s heart clenches painfully in his chest. He wants to defend himself, to justify it, but of course there’s nothing.

He’d tried at first. He’d visited Daniel in the hospital with the rest of Daniel’s friends in the days following the crash, and once or twice more after he was transferred more long-term to Australia. Races continued, and Daniel texted him bits and bobs about the tracks and what he was up to, and Max responded in turn, for a time. But as the months rolled on, Daniel’s brave face slipped more and more, and Max watched it happen at a loss from a guiltily appreciated distance. By the time Daniel officially announced his retirement, they weren’t talking. 

“I was scared,” Max whispers. It’s not an excuse—there is no excuse. “I thought—for so long I told myself you’d be back, and then you weren’t. And I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just… didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have that option,” Daniel says, tone dipping into bitter exhaustion. Max resists the urge to fidget his hand; he’s surprised Daniel hasn’t let go, but maybe it had been equally for Daniel’s sake that he’d grabbed it in the first place after all. “I can’t just forgive you and pretend it didn’t happen, even if I want to. I owe that to myself.” 

“I’m sorry,” Max says, again. It’s all he has.

“I know,” Daniel says, and Max can’t help but wonder how many more _I knows_ he’s going to hear before things are actually okay. It may not be absolution, but it’s still closer to it than Max knows he deserves. 

Max scrubs his free hand over his face, squeezes his eyes closed. “I just don’t know how to stop. I keep—I keep fucking things up, and I never feel any better afterward, and I never feel like I know what I’m doing.” He blinks a few times, like maybe if he tries hard enough it finally will reset his brain for real. “I don’t know why everything is so hard. Why I make everything so hard.” 

Max feels Daniel’s eyes on him, but he refuses to look over. This is—he’s never said anything like that, to anyone; he’s barely even consciously allowed himself to think about it. Of course the first person to hear it is Daniel.

“I want things to be easy,” he says, and it hurts to say even though it’s true and seemingly innocent. 

There’s a million other little things Max could say: he wants to watch the races without getting irritated and nauseous; he wants to be able to ignore his dad’s phone calls; he wants to hear Daniel making noise around the house and marvel at the familiarity instead of the strangeness. He wants to learn how to cook more than eggs and pasta. He wants to go to bed without melatonin ever crossing his mind. 

“I want to stop fucking things up,” he settles on. One day, maybe, he’ll be able to lay all the pieces of himself bare for Daniel to see, but in the meantime it’s enough to just be understood like this. 

“That’s a little much for a first goal,” Daniel teases, voice hoarse. “But you’re so stubborn, if anyone could do it, it’s you. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never fucked up.”

He’s right, but at the same time, “You’ve always been there for me when it counted, especially compared to my track record,” Max says. 

“But I also should’ve—“ Daniel starts. “I should’ve said something to you a long time ago. About all of this stuff,” he gestures around them in the open air. “I think I could see it, when we were still racing, or at least the beginning of it. You’ve always been—” he cuts himself off again, reconsiders. “I just felt like it wasn’t my place back then. And—I mean, there’s a line, but I’m your friend, and you were hurting. I shouldn’t have just ignored it.”

“When I was twenty, I would never have listened to you—and you think _this_ was a blow up.” Max almost laughs. “We would’ve just hurt each other, if you tried anything like this. Sometimes it seems like all we're good at is hurting each other.” 

It’s indisputable. Hungary, Baku, all their other tiffs based on race mistakes; the toxicity of the team in 2018 pitting them against each other; the strain and shifting guilt of Daniel’s move to Renault; both of them getting stupidly petty about shit that ultimately didn’t matter. Daniel’s retirement. This.

“And yet we keep coming back, after everything,” Daniel says. That, too, is indisputable; until Daniel’s retirement, they’d never been at odds for more than a break in the calendar before they were magnetically drawn back together. “Even now,” he adds, voice somber, but there’s a note of something else in it too. 

Max brings his eyes to Daniel. Daniel is staring steadily ahead, brow furrowed, eyes wet. Max wants to scream, wants to throw himself off the tiny little cliff as stupid and unsatisfying as it would be to do so, but he can’t even find the willpower to let go of Daniel’s hand despite the fact that he ought to be grossed out with how sweaty it is by now. 

Daniel glances back to him, and Max sees the moment he resolves himself, and then he’s speaking. “Listen, you don’t have to do anything with this, but I—fuck—I love you, I love you so fucking much, Max. Even with everything that’s happened, I could never stop myself from that.” 

“Daniel,” Max whispers, urgent, because what else can he say? Daniel’s told Max he loves him before, because Daniel loves everyone and everything and is so completely easy with his affection, but never like this. Over the entire decade they’ve known each other, it’s never been like this.

“I know that your—I know that you’ve been made to think you’re not worthy of being loved, or that you have to earn it, or that people always run away in the end if you don’t first, but I swear to god none of that is true. Wherever we end up—friends, more, or just back to the old work colleague you chat with once a month—I’ll love you however you’ll have me. Whether it hurts more than it feels good, whether you hate me after this, I don’t care. It’s true.”

Max blinks furiously, willing the tears back from his eyes. “I can’t—I can’t just say that, like you can, I can’t—”

“It’s okay—” Daniel says, but Max just—

“It’s like something gets caught in my throat, even if I want to—but I—look,” Max says. He gets to his knees frantically and threads their other hands together, so they’re forming a circle. 

It’s something his mum used to do with him, when he was a child. He hasn’t done it in years. He’s never done it with anyone else. 

He squeezes both hands three times, like a pulse. “Okay?” he asks, because he can’t just—but Daniel has to _know—_

Daniel drops his hands, brings his own up to Max’s face again and they’re kissing. It’s desperate, Max can practically hear his heartbeat in his ears. Daniel’s hands move over his body, tug him in closer, and Max does the same, and it feels like they’re of a singular mind, almost like they’re going to fuse together into one being if they keep heading down this path.

“Fuck,” Daniel groans into his mouth. “Max, is this too fast, should we—”

“Is it for you?” Max asks, knowing it’s not. 

They make out eagerly, and Max knows they have so much more to talk about, so much more to do if they want this to work. But the way Daniel’s fingers thread into his hair, the way Daniel’s hands slide over his hips, it’s overwhelming. Equally overwhelming is how it feels to touch Daniel—to finally touch him, to feel the heat of his skin and the muscle working underneath it, to feel the softness of his curls and how his unshaven face rubs against Max’s, to know what it is to be drunk on the scent of brown sugar vanilla and something purely _Daniel_ underneath.

Max pulls away, reluctantly. “Let’s go back,” he says. “I’m not having sex in the woods.”

Daniel’s eyes blow wide, and then he laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound Max has ever fucking heard. He can’t help but join in, and then they’re laughing together like always, except everything is different and so much more than it’s ever been.

“Can’t argue with that,” Daniel says. “Wouldn’t want a bug crawling up your ass, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“The bug would be crawling up your ass, fuck you,” Max says, and it’s so stupid but so absurdly funny, that he’s talking about this, that he’s talking about it with Daniel.

“Semantics,” Daniel says, and they both get up to leave but it’s a bit of a process when they can’t keep their hands off each other.

They pick up the blanket and the packs and head back through the bush as quickly as possible. They don’t run, but—who could blame them if they did? 

By the time they’re back in the car and driving (after one last “public display of affection,” to put it lightly), Max has time to calm down a little and actually think about everything that just happened. He can’t just put all of it out of his mind, especially because—well, because he trusts Daniel.

This whole trip has been an exercise in trust more than anything else. Putting himself in Daniel’s hands for two weeks, letting Daniel surprise him and take care of him and start to understand all the little pieces of him whether Max laid them bare or not. Despite what Max had said during their argument, Daniel does know him, even now. The last two weeks have proven that.

He can’t think about it too hard—if he does, he’ll spiral, and everything is too good right now to spiral. But if Daniel wants him to try, whatever that entails, he will. He can do that, he _will_ do that, if that’s what it takes to keep this. For himself, too, if that’s what it takes to finally feel better.

He has trust. He’ll try. 

The rest of the drive is spent teasing Daniel about road head and getting him as worked up as possible without distracting him into driving into a ditch. By the time they get back to the farm, they’re both giddy with it, again. 

They’re kissing before they make it out of the car, before they make it up the walk, before Daniel can get the key into the lock and let them inside. As soon as he does, Max is pushing them both in, shutting the door behind them and pushing Daniel up against it.

Daniel pulls at his shirt, a remembrance of the pool, and Max pulls away to get it off, groaning.

“You have no idea how much I’ve thought about this,” Max says, breathless.

“I have some idea,” Daniel chuckles. “You’ve never been subtle.”

Max flushes hard. “Fuck you,” he says, pushing his way into Daniel’s mouth again.

Somehow they make it upstairs and into Daniel’s room. Now Max is up against the door, one of Daniel’s thighs pressing up between his own, and he can’t help the small noises, the way his nails scratch into Daniel’s bare arms. They’ve lost more clothes on the way, but they’re still in boxers—it’s still not quite skin to skin.

“Do you have lube?” Max asks between panting breaths.

“Yeah, but we can’t—unless you?” Daniel asks, sounding almost awestruck, and Max barks out a laugh.

“Jesus, no, I didn’t plan ahead that far. But we can still, you know,” Max says, red-faced and heady.

“One day I’ll make you say it,” Daniel says, joking but not. “But yeah, c’mere.”

Daniel digs around in the nightstand for lube, and Max rips the blankets down the bed and strips out of his boxers. He lies back on the bed, and when Daniel looks up from the drawer, when his eyes widen at the sight of Max and he lets his gaze run over him, Max feels more wanted than he’s ever felt in his life.

Daniel tosses him the lube and pulls off his own boxers, and Max can’t help the giggle that he lets out when Daniel settles down on top of him.

Daniel looks—oh, his _face_ —”No,” Max says. “I wasn’t—I love your dick, oh my god. I just—I can’t believe we’re doing, it’s so surreal.”

Daniel laughs, expression caught somewhere in fond disbelief. “I can’t either, but—holy shit! Laughing at first sight of my dick, what the hell, you’d make a girl nervous.”

“Hey, I thought I was the hot girl here,” Max teases, and Daniel snorts.

“Oh, I forgot all about that,” he says. “That must’ve wound you up, huh? When you were already thinking of me?”

“Just a little, and you’re never allowed to mention it again,” Max admits, kissing Daniel to cut off any other smart comments he might have. 

They rut against each other, lube easing the slide, and it’s hardly the most intense thing Max has ever done but he already feels his orgasm approaching. The build up had been so much, too much, and that with the weight of his emotion is driving him faster than he would’ve ever thought possible.

If he were younger, he’d be embarrassed, but he’s not—and if Daniel isn’t on the same page as him, he will be soon enough. Daniel is biting into his neck, probably leaving obvious bruises like they’re stupid teenagers, but Max loves it. He brings a hand down from where he’d been clutching at Daniel to wrap around both of their cocks and pumps them together, just lightly, and it has both of them moaning into each other’s skin.

Daniel kisses him slowly, now, but it’s no less desperate. It’s everything Max has ever dreamt of and more—Daniel’s tongue in his mouth, Daniel pushing his hips down into Max’s grip, Daniel’s hands roving over Max’s body like it’s something precious. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.

“Fuck,” Daniel breathes out, pulling back ever-so-slightly, “fuck, Maxie, I love you.” And it’s cliche, but that’s enough for Max to cry out, thrusting up against Daniel in his own grip, ribbons of come decorating his body as wave after wave of ecstasy washes over him.

Daniel comes less than a minute later, adding to the mess on Max’s body. Max revels in it, in being able to see Daniel like this, finally real after years of shamefully imagining it. Daniel flops over on his side when he’s finished, facing Max, grinning in a way that would be lecherous if he wasn’t so clearly in love.

“Worth the wait?” he asks, and he’s referring to the hike and the drive, probably, but it’s also been a wait for a lot longer than just today.

“Maybe,” Max says, voice light. “We’ll probably have to go again, to know for sure.” 

Daniel groans. “I knew you would still be a horndog,” he says, leaning in to kiss Max again. “But it’s okay, I still am too.” 

—

They work in one more round for each of them before they fall asleep, and then don’t wake up until late into the morning to pay for it. Although, all things considered, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference what time they woke up either way since the entire day is spent laying around having sex.

It’s Thursday, the day Max has been dreading all week, but sucking Daniel off is a perfectly suitable distraction. Even outside of that, it’s easier than he thought it would be, collecting all his stray belongings and making sure he’s all packed for his flight tomorrow. It’s not that he wants to go back to Monaco any more than he had before, but with the knowledge that Daniel is only a text away, it doesn’t seem quite so bad—plus, Daniel is intent on flying up to Monaco after the wedding. 

“And you call me desperate?” Max teases, checking over the contents of his suitcase one last time. Daniel whines at him, hooking his chin over Max’s shoulder as he wraps his arms around Max from behind. 

“I know, I know,” he says. “I’m honeymooning, kill me. But there’s other things! I need to list my apartment, for one.” 

“I can't believe you haven’t sold it already,” Max laughs. “When was the last time you were even in it for more than a week?” 

“Last GP, week and a day,” Daniel says, mock-triumphant and absolutely unbearable. 

Max turns around and kisses him lazily, and it’s nice, for what it is and because he can finally just do what he wants without questioning it. It feels weird, in a way, that this is happening and the world hasn’t stopped to watch them, to wait for them to catch up on the last several years. The wedding is still on, Max’s flight isn’t cancelled—life goes on. It’s strange and it isn’t, although that’s about how Max has felt the entire last two weeks anyway. 

“I guess we’ll just have to honeymoon together,” Max says, teasing still but also entirely soft with it. 

Daniel’s smile is his favorite, again. Small and genuine, undeniably sentimental and indulgent. “Guess so,” he says, eyes bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') they're in love! we made it! pog. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing; i am also basically in love with them at this point. Thanks again everyone for sticking with it and kd/comments appreciated as always :’) 
> 
> ~~also there’s so much to be said about forgiveness and love in this fic but consider it canon that if max really HAD preemptively prepped for an*l without telling daniel he would’ve forgiven him immediately HDHSHDHD jk but... daniel thinking w his dick would it be so implausible HDHSHHD~~


	7. epilogue

Max wakes up slowly.

Sunlight is beaming on them from a gap in the curtains, and Daniel is curled up beside him, snoring softly. Zoë is laying out between their legs, and Max really has to be more serious about keeping her out of the bed before she gets too spoiled, but he knows deep down he never will. After all, she has the curliest hair he’s ever seen on a lab, and half the reason he’d picked her was due to her resemblance to a certain other puppy he can’t help spoiling.

In the months that he’s been with Daniel, he’s still only woken up before him a rare handful of times. Even if it was frequent, though, Max doesn’t think he’d ever grow tired of it. It’s unfair how good Daniel looks sleeping when Max knows he just looks like a dork, but he appreciates the view nonetheless: Daniel, curls wildly tangled, hands uncharacteristically still, face slack but always seemingly on the verge of breaking into a grin. 

Max rolls over and unplugs his phone. He scrolls through instagram a bit, but he doesn’t spend nearly as much time on it as he used to—partly because of Daniel and his therapist, but mostly because he doesn’t feel the need anymore anyway. He’s stalling, a little, in being on it at all, but it’s okay. He’s already made up his mind.

He opens his email, scanning down until he gets to the message he’s looking for, and types out a quick response. He doesn’t need to say much. Christian will get it. 

Daniel sighs in his sleep and rolls over onto his back. Max doesn’t have long now before he wakes up, he never does, but he’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Max slings an arm over Daniel’s waist, and soon enough Zoë stands up and jumps off the bed. She’ll be ready for her “walk” in about ten minutes, and it’s a good thing she has two owners who love running with her because otherwise she’d never work all her energy out. 

Daniel stirs awake. “Your turn?” he asks sleepily, one eye tracking Zoë as she runs out the bedroom door.

“No,” Max says, “I took her yesterday.” 

“Go with me, then?” Daniel asks. He’s looking at Max now, smiling in the way he always does when he’s like this.

“Hmm,” Max intones. “I don’t know, what are you offering?”

Daniel bumps their noses together and kisses him, soft and sweet as he starts waking up for real. It’s perfect, even the way Zoë barks at them from the other room.

“Your little gremlin is waiting,” Daniel says.

“ _Your_ little gremlin,” Max corrects. “She likes you more than me.”

Daniel stretches, sitting up and leaving Max on the pillows. “I don’t know about that,” he says, faux-thoughtful. “We’re pretty similar, she and I, and you’re definitely our favorite.”

“Of course I am, I give you both way too many treats,” Max says.

Daniel leans down to kiss him, again, proving his point immediately. “Yeah, and we love you for it,” Daniel says. He holds out his hand for Max’s reflexively, and Max accepts it, like always.

“Just don’t expect me to pick up her shit this time,” Max says, urging the both of them up before Zoë passes out with excitement before they even leave the apartment.

“Dog shit talk while we’re pashing, sexy,” Daniel says, but he’s grinning, and so is Max. 

“It’s part of my charm,” Max says. “Now hurry up, I don’t want to run into anyone today.” 

Daniel laughs, like always, and it’s all just sickeningly domestic. 

Max loves it. He loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much if you've stuck around this long :') i just..... them. They. they are in Luv. wow.
> 
> here's my [post](https://wntrs.tumblr.com/private/625549192051425280/tumblr_u6oinlZ2CiuxwHvQn) that goes into some of my thoughts with characterization/representation/mental health in this fic so if you're interested take a look! it's also kind of just a wrap-up for the fic in general and some personal soapbox time at the end. it isn't required reading by any means (as none of my notes are) but i'd rather have all my thoughts out than not! i also cant recommend reading it if you'd prefer to interpret the story without any influence of authorial intent (an incredibly understandable viewpoint), because me talking about my authorial intentions is basically the entire post up until the last few paragraphs.
> 
> it's been an experience, yall. i wrote this in less than two weeks, and it is BY FAR my longest fic ever, and its on the back of FOUR FICS in the last two months, when i usually write like four fics a year lmfao. f1 brainrot is real. and one last random note - Zoë is named after Daniel's childhood dog, in case anyone was curious where the name came from and didn't know!
> 
> FINALLY ONE LAST THANKS!!! thank you all, i love all of your comments and cherish them immensely. i'm really happy!! i think this went pretty alright for my first longfic!


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